In The Game
by tielan
Summary: John Sheppard's got a game to be played and won but will he lose his heart in the process? [high school AU]
1. a game that counts

**NOTES**: Written under the concept of the LJ community 'shermer high' - a high-school AU where the teachers are familiar characters from Stargate SG-1, and the students are familiar characters from Stargate Atlantis. This is a sequel of sorts to 'Wrong Kind Of Guy' although it's not necessary to have read that story first.

**In The Game  
(A Tale Of Shermer High)**

**i. a game that counts**

John was weaving through the Friday afternoon crush when Bates caught up to him in the corridor, slipping past a couple of freshmen too eager to get out of school to look where they were going.

"About tonight's starting line-up," Bates began.

"Yes, Teyla's in the starting line-up." John answered without letting the other guy finish. He knew where this was going - Bates was very predictable when it came to some things. His dislike of Teyla on the football team came up with clockwork regularity. "Coach's call as well as mine."

The final bell had rung and the corridors were rapidly clearing as the students of Shermer High headed out to catch their buses or walk home, depending on where they lived.

John caught a few eyes as the students went past, took a few friendly slaps from his buddies, and got a few calls of 'good luck' for tonight's game against Dalton. With the final games of the football season lining up, the pressure was on. Shermer wasn't one of the best schools in the league, but they had a reasonable chance for the league title, and these last two games would be the deciders.

"You know Lorne broke up with her?" Bates commented, having kept in step with him all the way down the corridor, sticking with John like a limpet.

John hadn't known. He frowned, wondering what the hell that had to do with him. Or Bates, if it came to that.

"What's that got to do with the line-up?"

"She's a girl."

John glanced at Bates. "You noticed."

The prod might have gotten a blush from a guy with paler skin. Bates just looked a little uncomfortable. "Girls get emotional when they've been dumped. Her game might be a little wobbly."

"Are you sure you're not just angling to keep her off the field?" The enmity between Bates and Teyla was legendary. Bates was of the opinion that a girl - especially a junior - had no call being on the varsity football team, no matter how good her eye, how true her throws, or how fast she could run. And he let Teyla know it. Naturally, Teyla wasn't at all happy to have her position on the team questioned, and could be very pointed towards Bates when someone praised her skill on the field.

Coach Caldwell - and John, for that matter - were of the opinion that if you were good enough for the varsity football team, you were good enough for the varsity football team. And since Teyla was one of the best wide receivers Shermer had, Caldwell was the coach, and John was quarterback and captain, that was that.

It never stopped Bates from trying to get her taken off the field.

"These next two games are important - Dalton and St. Rait's. Dalton's presently on a winning streak, and St. Rait's...well, you know the Rait."

St. Rait's Boys were Shermer's sworn enemies and had been for decades. It was a matter of honour to win against them - no matter the cost in energy or effort. "We screw these games up and our chances for State go down the drain."

"You really think I'd throw away our chances for State?" John asked, stopping in the middle of the rapidly-emptying corridor and not caring that two exasperated juniors had to detour around him. "Teyla's a solid player - one of our best. If her game was a problem, Coach would have picked it up and we'll deal with it then."

Bates shrugged, although his expression was sour. "I'm just pointing out that the break-up could have a bad effect on her. You know how girls are."

John kept the grimace from his expression in an act of will. Yeah, John knew how girls were. He didn't much want a reminder right now.

"Thank you for bringing it to my attention." He headed for his locker. "Don't let me keep you."

"Sheppard..."

"Bates, I said that if there was an issue with Teyla's game, we'd deal with it then, okay?" John was feeling just angry enough to push back now that Bates had shoved him far enough. "That's as much as you're going to get right now. And," he added when Bates opened his mouth to protest, "if you say anything more, I'm going to assume you're just angling to get her kicked off the team, and we've got _another_ problem and one that I'll bring up with Caldwell before the game."

It wasn't a direct threat to have Bates dropped from the evening game, but it shaved things pretty close. John was annoyed enough not to care.

Bates gave him a narrow-eyed look but just said, "Fine," before walking off.

John exhaled quietly to himself as he rummaged through his backpack to work out what he wasn't going to need for the weekend.

So Teyla and Lorne were no longer an item.

John was surprised by that. Last time he looked closely, the two had been pretty into each other.

He wondered what - or who - had happened to turn things sour.

John grimaced as he tossed his Trigonometry textbook into the locker and hauled out AP Physics.

Break-ups were presently a touchy subject for him, ever since Chaya Sar had decided to 'move on' - her words, not his. She'd told John he was sweet and a really nice guy--

John had stopped listening about the time she hit the words 'really nice guy'. There was no such thing as 'a really nice guy who got the girl in the end', there was only a 'but...'

Chaya's 'but' was that she had her eye on someone else.

Chemistry was next - another textbook that was too damn heavy and full of stuff that John would never need to know once he got into the Air Force Academy. That was where he was headed at the end of the year. He'd already submitted his application, applied for the approval of his Senator, and received favourable indications. He had to get through his SATs with reasonable results, but as long as he proved he wasn't some bimbo, he was fairly certain he was in.

At least the old man was good for something.

After the last couple of weeks, John couldn't wait for the school year to be over, never mind that it had only started.

Chaya's new boyfriend was some guy whose dad bankrolled movies and whose mom spent most of her time in the beauty parlour or having morning tea with her friends. His transfer to Shermer had something to do with his godmother thinking he needed to see how the 'unwashed masses' lived _sans_ silver spoon. His money and oozing charm had something to do with the way the non-football crowd had clustered around him, leaving John high and dry.

The last two weeks had been a mad whirlygig of fun for John as the girls smirked and whispered and the boys slapped him on the shoulder in commiseration. The girls mostly went along with Chaya, and the boys followed the girls. So John's group of 'friends' - and he was using that term in the broadest sense, now - had mostly drifted elsewhere.

Whatever.

John was getting back into the swing of things, smiling and chatting up the girls who'd been interested in him before the month he'd been with Chaya.

_Better make a move soon,_ he reminded himself. _Homecoming's in less than a week and you're without a date now._

As he slammed the locker door closed, John reflected that things had been easier back when Liz wasn't dating Ronon Dex. He would have just asked her and wouldn't have had to worry about finding a date in the end. Not that he was into Liz that way - they were friends, like he was with Rodney or Carson - but she wasn't ugly and she was there, and it wouldn't have made much gossip after the three years they'd been hanging out together.

Then again, he reflected, if it hadn't been Dex, then Ben Maroney would probably have tried to make a move. Or even Radek Zelenka. Liz had her admirers, most of whom had never done more than stammer their way through a greeting before school began. Then Ronon Dex strolled into Shermer, flexed a few muscles, and suddenly Liz was out of play.

Okay, so there was more to it than that, maybe - the whole thing with Kolya and his goons for a start - but a couple of grins and a few self-defence lessons and Liz had fallen into Ronon's arms like a perfectly-aimed, perfectly-caught throw.

John hefted his backpack and headed out of the school towards the gym locker rooms and put all thoughts of girls out of his mind. He'd done enough fretting over the whole dating game.

Time for a game that _counted_.

- **TBC** -


	2. made for walking

**Tips and Hints for Shermer High**: Welcome to Shermer High! Football capital of the county. Okay, not quite. But close. We're pretty good, you know. If you like football, you should watch our team play Dalton tonight, St. Rait's Boys next week. You'll want to stick around for that game - we're old rivals and it's gonna be a close game. Oh, and if you think one of the cheerleaders has somehow gotten into the wrong gear and is on the field, that's Teyla Emmagen. Yes, there is a girl on our football team. Yes, she holds her own. And after watching Teyla play football, you won't _ever_ use the phrase 'hits like a girl' again. Because she _seriously_ doesn't.

**In The Game**

**ii. made for walking**

Teyla was usually a bit slower than the guys to emerge from the change rooms, so John waited for her just outside the showers. He'd endured a few querying glances from the other guys, but jerked his head towards the locker room where Caldwell was starting the pre-game coaching session.

It wasn't as though he didn't have a reason for asking this.

Bates didn't like Teyla, sure. But that didn't mean that Teyla's break-up with Lorne hadn't had a bad effect on her. John was just asking.

He was a team-mate and the captain of the team. It was his business to make sure that all his players were okay before a game, especially such a high-pressure game as the one coming up against Dalton.

She strode past him in a cloud of peculiarly feminine scent - girls' deodorant was nothing like guys' - and, startled, John reached out to snag her arm, tugging her over to the side. "Hey, Teyla, wait up a moment."

Teyla turned, her slightly tilted eyes bright and concerned. "John?" She glanced down the corridor to the locker room. "Do we not have a coaching session?"

"Well, yeah, but I need a word with you."

Her eyes were edged with red, John noticed as he looked at her, as though she'd been crying. But there was no sign of tears in her eyes now, she met his gaze straight on, cool as she'd ever been since the first day she turned up at Shermer. "Yes?"

John hesitated, wondering just how much trouble he was going to get into for this. "You okay?"

"Should I not be?"

"I heard about you and Lorne."

Teyla shrugged, carefully nonchalant as she brushed wisps of fringe back from her forehead. "It happens."

"Yeah. Maybe. That doesn't mean you always like what happens." He tried to be sympathetic. "Well, I'm sorry."

"You had nothing to do with it," came her reply, although at least her voice was a little lighter now. "Unless you are now dating Mark?"

John flashed her a wry look. "He's not my type. Anyway, I just wanted to check that you were okay for this game."

The slim, wiry body stiffened, her eyes searching his face with the kind of scrutiny John was more used to getting from teachers than fellow students.

"I am capable of playing this game."

"I never said you weren't."

"But you asked if I was okay to play."

He frowned, growing annoyed that she was taking his questioning the wrong way. "I was concerned."

"And has your concern extended to asking the other players if they also are 'okay'?"

John could have lied. He had a feeling that Teyla would see right through him if he tried. "Well, no."

"I see."

"Look, a break-up can be pretty serious--"

"Did you inquire after Markham's health when he and Sophia Dacey broke up last week?"

John hadn't even been aware that Markham had broken up with his girlfriend. And from the expression on Teyla's face, she knew he'd been oblivious.

"Teyla--"

"John," she interrupted, clearly exasperated with him. "I am not yet an emotional wreck, incapable of doing anything more than weeping over my relationship with Mark. If I become one while on the field _then_ you may take me from the team."

Great. Thanks to Bates' suggestion - and his own concern - he was now in trouble with his best wide receiver. "I was worried!"

"Then I take it that your worry is assauged?" Without pausing for an answer, she spun on one slim heel and headed for the pep talk.

"Wait! Teyla!" John grabbed her arm, hauling her back. "That's not--" He ground his teeth. "Look," he said, trying a new tack. "I had a reason. These games - tonight's game and the one next week against St. Rait's - are important."

"To me as well as to you." Any other girl would have backed down, apologised. Teyla didn't. Or wouldn't. Stubborn didn't half describe Teyla Emmagen when she had her back up.

"Good. And I _was_ concerned about you." Why wasn't it earning him brownie points? There were times when John just didn't get girls.

She thawed, but only by a couple of degrees. "Thank you, John. Is there anything else that is concerning you?"

"Yeah, actually, I was wondering if you'd like to go with me to Homecoming."

A second of stunned silence passed. Teyla blinked once. John asked himself where that had come from.

Okay, so it made a kind of logical sense. Teyla was a girl without a date, John was a guy without a date. They were friends. She wasn't bad-looking even when decked out in football gear, and John wasn't vain, but he knew he wasn't a troll.

And, as John had discovered during the Founders' Dance, she could salsa the legs off a guy.

"You are asking me to be your date for Homecoming?"

There was no reason for her to look at him like he'd just taken leave of his senses.

Even if he had.

"Yeah. I am."

"Are you not part of the Homecoming court?"

"Duke of Earl, actually," John said. "But that's beside the point. I'm asking you." He tilted his head. "You're not going with Lorne anymore, are you?"

Colour washed her face. "No." She bit her lip, hesitating.

There was a discreet cough from the door to the locker room.

John turned, hoping that he wasn't flushing, only too aware that Teyla was. At least Caldwell had sent Ford rather than Bates or Markham. Another junior, Aiden Ford was cheerful, enthusiastic, a solid player, and one of the guys who openly supported Teyla's place on the team.

"Uh, coach sent me to check on you guys," Ford said. It was hard to tell on the dark-skinned face, but his expression was embarrassed. "Pep talk's about to get started."

Teyla nodded and walked past Ford and out to the locker room without even glancing at John.

John didn't sigh, but he reflected that Ford's timing off the field was as bad as his timing _on_ the field was _good_. And he wondered how much the other guy had heard of the conversation. Hopefully, not too much.

Then again, Ford was giving him a look that was at once both knowing and questioning. "Did I interrupt something?"

"No," John said. "Nothing. Just checking up on her."

"Her breakup with Mark Lorne?"

"Bates thought it might interfere with her game."

Ford's snort was skeptical as they headed down the corridor to the locker room. "Like anything interferes with Teyla's game."

"He dumped her," said John. "It might."

"On another planet, maybe," said Ford as they reached the door through which the noises of a bunch of guys - and one girl - gearing up for the Friday night game could be heard. "Last I checked, we're on Earth. And Teyla's even more reliable than me." He smirked. "Although don't tell her I said that."

John shook his head but grinned all the same. Ford was usually quiet, keeping his head down both in the social scene and the sports scene - most of the time. And then he'd pop up with a sly comment, a raucous joke, or something else that completely broke the idea of the guy as run-of-the-mill.

As it turned out, Ford was right. Teyla's game was fine - as good as John could have wished. In fact, everyone was on their game, playing their best, or very close to it.

The problem was that their best wasn't quite good enough.

By the half-time horn, they were down 7-0, without even a field goal to their name.

It wasn't that Shermer was playing badly - they'd had a few good moments through the game. Unfortunately, Dalton was playing a better game, fluidly switching their plays back and forth across the field, bulling through Shermer's defence and blocking in their offensive side. So far, Dalton had scored one touchdown and one field goal. Shermer rallied under John's lead, but things were looking bad - and they all knew it.

They crowded into the locker rooms, tired and dispirited, snappish and quick to cast blame. Fortunately, Bates couldn't blame Teyla - as John knew the guy wanted to. Of all the players, the wide receivers had done the best out of the plays so far, getting halfway down the field before getting slammed into by defensive tackles that hurt John's teeth to watch, let alone encounter.

"All right," said Caldwell as the last of them trooped through the door and closed it behind them. "They've played a good game so far, they're on home turf, but now they're tired. They'll get complacent, relaxed. So we take them hard, fast, and unexpected." The coach's voice was a deep and steady rumble, rumour had that the coach had been pro before a leg injury took him off the field. "Sheppard?"

"Sir?"

"I'll give you the cues, but you're calling the plays on the field." Caldwell's gaze was dark and sharp as he looked around the room, fixing on the receivers and runners. "Teyla, Kevin, use the slip techniques we've been practising - for the other receivers, stick with the plays you've been using but look for opportunities, let Teyla and Kevin draw their defence out, then smash through."

Coach waited for nods from the players in question, then directed his gaze on the runners. "Ford, Harrison, Lichfield, bait-and-switch tactics, then use Teyla and Kevin deep. We've been further behind than this before and we came back. We'll do it again." The piercing gaze looked around the locker room. "Any questions?"

"Only how much ass we're allowed to kick out there," John said with a straight face.

A twitch appeared at the corner of Caldwell's mouth and his head tilted a little. "As much ass as you can comfortably heave, Sheppard." He looked around the room, "Ready to go?"

"Yeah!" The first cry was ragged.

It was a pathetic response. "_Are we ready_?" John bellowed.

"_YEAH_!" _That_ sounded more like it.

They headed back out to the corridor, jostling and joshing as they waited for the announcers to call them back on the field. Teyla was involved in a three-way muffled conversation with Ford and Lichfield, her helmet held loosely in her hands as she listened and occasionally offered her own suggestions and comments. John flashed a quick smile at her - and at the other receivers - as he passed on his way up to the head of the line. Her return smile was brief and polite, almost dismissive as her eyes flickered back to Lichfield's comments.

John didn't quite stalk his way to the corridor exit.

He felt dismissed all the same. And frustrated by it.

He jogged out on a wave of cheers from Shermer - as well as the expected boos from Dalton.

As the team moved into position, spreading out across the field, ready to receive, Ford passed him, grinning. "Good crowd from Shermer tonight."

"Not surprising," John skimmed the bleachers, finding the pockets of Shermer supporters, their colours waving wildly in the crisp night air. He spotted Liz in the school jersey, bouncing up and down, Ronon's towering form next to her, a scarf wrapped firmly around his throat. Rodney had a hunched look about him, doubtless complaining about the wind, and there was no mistaking Laura Cadman's blond hair beneath the field lights. The beanie-headed boy next to her was probably Carson - nothing else would induce her and Rodney to sit within snarking distance of each other.

There were other classmates and faces recognisable in the crowd - and lots more Dalton supporters that John didn't recognise.

And one face - pointed, pale, and keen - that was not a Shermer supporter and definitely not a Dalton student.

John passed Markham as the team spread out, grabbing for the center's shoulder. "Three o'clock, fourth tier down."

Markham tilted his head and frowned. "Kenmore from St. Rait's."

"That's the third game in a row that we've had someone from Rait watching the game." The last couple of times had been guys John recognised by face, if not by name. John frowned. Michael Kenmore was the quarterback for St Rait's Boys - what the hell was he doing here when he had his own game to play?

No time to ponder that now. John glanced around, checking out his team's positions on the field. Everyone was in place for the kick off.

_Let's play._

The whistle blew. Dalton kicked off.

The game was on.

John's perception of the world changed during play. While things like light and shadow became more distinct, allowing him to pick out the vivid colours of his team-mates and their movements, sharp and clear, other things blurred into the background: the noise of the crowd and any movement beyond the playing field.

A quick glance behind showed Harrison had grabbed the ball and was making his way up the field with his prize.

Jimmy Harrison was known as 'Slick' for a reason. He was tall and skinny and was harder to hold onto than a live eel. His legs made him fast, and his knack for twisting out of the tightest grip made him a great runner - especially after the kick return.

John blocked one of Dalton's defence, trying to give Harrison as much of a run as possible. He saw Bates' number streak past, getting in the way of another Dalton player, then the whistle blew as the Dalton players piled on Slick, stopping him just past the forty-five yard line.

The call was John's; he called duck crossings. For some inexplicable reason, dating back decades, the plays at Shermer were always called by descriptive names, not just letters-and-numbers. 'Duck crossings' involved moving the ball across the field in a feint, and was rarely used because of the overhead pass that moved the play focus from centre field out to the wings.

Voices. Whistle. Play.

The ball snapped from Markham to John, and John ran forward, aiming for the break between his defense players intercepting the attack. Another Dalton defenceman loomed large in his vision and he took two steps in the opposite direction to the one he'd been running. His arm drifted back to snap the ball in a pass to the Shermer uniform he could see running forwards - according to the play it should be Kevin Padjamoulous, colloquially known as 'PJ' - and the ball arced into the air.

It was a clean pass, undeflected by the player who ran into John, throwing him off-course.

It was an equally clean catch by a Dalton player, leaping into the air ahead of PJ to gain possession of the ball. The stadium echoed with the deafening roar of the Dalton supporters and the gasping dismay from Shermer's fans.

John saw Stackhouse take down the Dalton player the next moment but the damage was done. Dalton had possession of the ball, and they were in Shermer territory.

_Fuck._

As they arrayed for Dalton's next play, John ignored Bates' pointed glare. Yeah, the duck crossings was a risky play, but it was specifically tailored to the skills and abilities of the runners and receivers on the Shermer team. When it worked, it worked _well_.

When it didn't...

Whistle. Play.

John joined the defense, keeping an overall eye on things and trusting to Bates' skill at safety, all the while watching the Dalton plays and trying to see how they were moving. At these moments, a kind of calculation entered his head - not the kind of calculations Rodney loved - but with its own simple purity: the sense of his place among the team, with the enemy arrayed against him.

No way was Shermer going down without a fight.

John swore it.

Two plays by Dalton, twenty-five yards gained. Dalton were nearly in the red zone. Every guy on the Shermer team was sweating bullets. John dragged in a breath of air that tasted foul with Dalton's glee at their closeness to the endzone.

Until one of their backs lobbed a pass that was a little lower than it should have been, without the arc required to fall neatly into the receiver's arms. And a slim figure made a running leap through the breach, catching the ball in sure arms before hitting the ground running.

And damn, but the girl could _run_.

Teyla was no Slick, but she had an instinct for footwork that got her out of most attempts to run her down. She dodged two linemen just before the fifty-yard line, then slipped out of the grasp of a third just past Dalton's forty-yard line. John was running way behind, but a quick glance showed there wasn't even a need for him. Ford and Lichfield were spreading wide, taking the two closest Dalton players, and giving Teyla a clear run for the last quarter of the field.

The nearest Dalton was still ten yards away when she sprinted into the endzone to Shermer's jubilant roar of approval. A good seventy yard run. A damn good touchdown.

John reached her with enough time to grab her by the shoulders in a triumphant grip. Ford and Lichfield had already done their share of back-thumping, and several of the other guys were yelling encouragements. "That," he said emphatically as he let her go, "was amazing!"

He saw the gleeful curve of her mouth in the white lights of the stadium for one breathtaking second before the cheers and shouts coming from the Shermer supporters changed tenor and her head turned towards the bandstand as the strains of the Shermer Band began filtering through the crowd. Whoever the band leader was tonight, they had a wicked sense of humour - the band was belting out '_These Boots Are Made For Walking_.'

"Tey-la! Tey-la! Tey-la!" The chant came from the stands - a now-familiar catcall for a tradition started by Ford nearly two months ago.

During that game against Moorcroft, Ford had scored the first touchdown in a home game where several defensive line injuries had resulted in Shermer watching their opponents score...and score...and score...

That night, when the crowd roared their approval of his touchdown, Ford had strutted along the line with one arm up in the air making the metal-horns handsign, and grinning like a loon.

It was a little risky, but became a tradition - first touchdown of the night got to do 'the strut'. Sometimes it was nothing more than the metal-horns gesture, sometimes it was a little dance. Harrison had got carded for an excessive display two weeks ago, which had curbed last week's game.

Now, it seemed, it was Teyla's turn.

"Tey-la! Tey-la! Tey-la!" The chant grew louder, audible even beneath the announcement of the touchdown over the PA and the setup for the conversion.

Ford turned, mere yards away. His teeth were a flash of brightness under the lights, all the more effective for the dark of his skin. "Come on, Teyla! Shake that ass!"

Teyla glanced at the stands, glanced at her team-mates, half of whom were watching her while the other half were heading for their conversion positions. She glanced at John, who shrugged, nonchalant. He hadn't scored the first touchdown in a season yet, so he'd never been under pressure to do it. If she wanted to, then it was up to her.

He didn't see the roll of her eyes, but he knew it was there as the band launched into the chorus.

_These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do.  
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you!_

Then Teyla laughed, lifted her chin to the crowd, and did a little round-in-a-circle dance in time to the music, moving with a shimmy and a shake of her hips, and lifting her hand in the metal horns gesture in the air above her until it was fully outstretched overhead.

It was short. It was neat. It was unbelievably sexy. And John felt the lust hit him like a two-fifty pound linebacker. He was a guy; and at this moment, Teyla Emmagen was the goddamn sexiest girl he'd ever laid eyes upon - padding and all.

He had a feeling that those sentiments were shared by most of the guys on the field right then.

The crowd went wild - both Shermer and Dalton fans cheering her like crazy.

"Damn, girl," Ford laughed from a few yards away, grinning all over his features. "_You go, Teyla_!" He yelled, holding two thumbs up.

Teyla turned their way and, this time, even the shadow of her helmet couldn't hide the flash of a brilliant, wicked grin.

Under that grin, it was impossible not to smile. Or stop his belly from a momentary tightening, even as the umpires rolled their eyes and yelled at them to get the game moving.

John got moving, relieved that cards weren't being issued tonight.

He signalled Teyla back to her position in the line-up, and she immediately jogged back to her wide position, ignoring the catcalls of the Dalton players as she passed them and calling back to her team-mates where they cheered her on.

"Fuck," Sam Mayhew muttered as John moved up past him, heading through the Dalton players whose brains - and probably libidos - were still short-circuited from Teyla's moves. "I think I've got a hard-on after that."

"Need to know," John snapped, in spite of the fact that he nearly had one himself. "And keep it in your pants."

Not that he was too worried about the guys and Teyla. Some of the guys mightn't like having a girl on the team, but they knew better than to harrass her. Coach wouldn't let it pass without punishment, John and several of the other guys wouldn't stand for it, and, considering she could almost hold her own in a mat fight against Ronon, Teyla would probably kick the ass of any guy who tried anything on her - whether intimidating or inappropriate.

Still, it mightn't hurt to put the word out.

John filed it away for later consideration.

The offensive line rallied through Dalton's defence to score a two-point conversion. Too easy. Of course, it helped that most of the Dalton guys were still fried in the head after watching Teyla swing her ass.

John couldn't blame them.

Riding the wave of that touchdown and conversion, Shermer sailed to victory against Dalton, almost casually scoring another two touchdowns, one converted with a kick, plus two fieldgoals. Dalton managed a field goal and a touchdown, but whatever had carried them through the first half dissolved after Shermer's first touchdown.

It was a good night.

- **TBC **-

**NOTES**: If the football terminology isn't perfect, either in this chapter, or in others, then I apologise. I've watched very few football games and my betas have done what they can to fix things up, but there may be errors and I take full and sole responsibility for any mistakes.


	3. settling and sorting

**Intro to Shermer - Part II**: You should know the cliques and groups at Shermer. Avoid the lipstick-and-squee crowd if you're not into boys and makeup, and stay out of the way of the jocks. They're not as bad as at some schools, probably because Sheppard's the captain of the team and he's in with the geeky intellectual types like Rodney McKay and Liz Weir, as well as the weird types like Teyla Emmagen and Carson Beckett. And if you can possibly help it, don't get Ronon Dex mad - rumour has it he belonged to a gang before he came to Shermer and once killed a guy for looking sideways at him!

**In The Game**

**iii. settling and sorting**

The local Shake 'n Steak was already filled with Shermer supporters when the team arrived. After each away game, Coach got the bus to stop at the restaurant, giving the hungry players about thirty minutes to get a meal after the game.

"Hey," John snagged Teyla's arm as she headed towards the table where the gang had already taken their food. "You're not hungry?"

She glanced up at the menu and shrugged. "I will return in time to order," she said, "if you will hold my place." Then she was off across the restaurant to where Ronon was gesturing with a mayonnaise-dipped fry that was coming rather closer to Rodney's hair than Rodney liked. Her path was marked by encouraging shouts and the catcalls of the Shermer supporters she passed on the way.

"Popular girl," Ford murmured.

"After tonight? Yeah," said John.

"Heard she broke up with Lorne," said Slick Harrison from behind, his eyes fixed on the menu. "Wonder if she's got a date to Homecoming next week."

"After tonight's game?" Lichfield snorted. "She'll have a date by the end of the night. _Someone's_ sure to ask."

_Someone already has. _John caught the glance Ford directed at him. He ignored it. Sure, he'd asked, but Teyla hadn't yet said 'yes.' And Lichfield was right. After the game against Dalton, she'd have her pick of guys from Shermer. Probably even her pick of guys from Dalton if she wanted. "Thinking about it?"

"Maybe," Harrison grinned, his long frame looking even longer and thinner out of the padding. "Try my luck."

"No way you're going to be _that_ lucky," Ford muttered.

John ignored the second glance Ford sent his way and looked out to where Teyla was leaning on the table where the others were sitting, sneaking fries from Rodney's plate as he protested, while laughing at something.

"_Someone's_ gotta get lucky," Harrison reasoned as Teyla laughingly dodged the fry Laura pelted at her for whatever she'd just said. "Why not me?"

_Because I asked first,_ John thought to himself. "Have you asked?"

"Well, okay, once I actually ask..." Harrison began, only to interrupted by a yelp from across the restaurant.

"Sheppard asked _what_?"

_Dammit, Rodney._

Ronon's dark eyes gleamed with wicked amusement as he roared. "Go, Sheppard!" Liz said or did something that made him flinch, but she looked like she was also trying to hold back a smile.

Teyla's usually-tanned skin was a dusky pink as she snapped something at Ronon. Heads turned to regard them, before swivelling around to where John was waiting in the queue.

_Oh, shit._

The guys around him were looking at him with varying expressions of disbelief and envy.

"Oh, you so did _not_," Harrison said, turning on John.

John spread his hands wide, about to say that he'd only asked her to Homecoming, and it had only been just before the game, and she hadn't even said 'yes', when Ford interrupted, making no attempt to hide his glee. "He so did!"

"Do you mind?"

"Not at all." Ford was grinning, wide enough to break his face in two.

John felt like smacking the smile off the younger guy's face. "Look, I just asked her to Homecoming. We're not dating."

"_Just_ Homecoming?" Lichfield inquired, smirking. It was a smirk that was echoed on the faces of a lot of the other players - with a couple of exceptions, Bates among them.

"Sneaky bastard," complained Harrison.

"He asked just before the game, Slick," Teyla said, walking up to them. "And it was _just_ Homecoming." Her face was still dusky with embarrassment, but the look she levelled at Harrison was fierce enough to make him put up his hands.

"Okay, okay. Can't blame a guy for hoping," Harrison muttered, but with good humour. Slick wouldn't have any trouble finding another girl to take to the Homecoming dance - he never seemed to have trouble getting dates.

"She hasn't said yes, yet." John glanced at Teyla, who rolled her eyes.

"You need an answer?" She pushed past him to the counter to order her meal.

"It would be nice." There were probably better places to hold this conversation than in the middle of a public restaurant full of Shermer students and the football coach, but John figured that he was already in deep shit after Ronon's call across the restaurant and he might as well go for broke.

Teyla counted out her change and handed it to the attendant, whose expression showed no appreciation for the dating lives of her customers as she dumped the coins in the till and handed Teyla her receipt, telling her to wait for her order to be called, before reaching down to get a cup for Teyla's drink.

Then Teyla turned so she could see John out of the corner of her eye. "Yes."

"Yes?"

She'd hooked her hair behind her ear, and John saw the pinkish tinge to the curve of her ear. Embarrassment at having to go with him or embarrassment at the fact that most of the people waiting for food were listening in? John really hoped it was the second rather than the first.

But she answered clearly. "Yes."

"Great. That wasn't so hard, was it?"

Teyla turned around to give him the mother of all exasperated looks, and John knew he was okay, although he winced when she punched his shoulder as she passed him - a friendly punch. He considered grabbing her arm and wrestling with her, just for fun, but the attendant's grumpy look persuaded him that he'd be better off to get his order in. Later, maybe.

As he was ordering, he heard the restaurant door opening, heard new voices enter and strike up conversations.

If he'd been paying a bit more attention, he would have noticed that the tenor of conversation behind him had changed. But all he was thinking was that he'd be the envy of the senior and junior years when they found out Teyla was his date for Homecoming.

It came pretty close to making up for being dumped by Chaya and deserted by his friends.

So when he spun on his heel with the receipt for his order, and found Teyla leaning against the condiments bar, smiling up into the pointed features of Michael Kenmore, John was unpleasantly surprised.

St Rait's was the local private high school - mostly boys, although the junior and senior years included girls. One of the few private schools in the area fielding enough players for a full football team, they had a reputation for ruthlessness when dealing with the other schools in the district and had been Shermer High's nemesis for decades.

'Bad blood' was an understatement.

Kenmore was one of the offensive players for St Rait's and had been the one watching the game earlier tonight - not that there was anything illegal about that. But now that the guy was here and chatting up Teyla, John wondered how much of Kenmore's interest was in Shermer's game, and how much was in Shermer's only female player.

John went and got his drink, then positioned himself next to Teyla. Not so close that he was in her personal space, but definitely within 'concerned party' radius. Teyla gave him a brief smile, but Kenmore's eyes rested on him for a calculating moment before returning to Teyla's face and finishing his sentence.

"...were some smooth moves out there."

"Yeah," John said, emphatically. "Her game was amazing."

Teyla shot a dark look at him in warning, but Kenmore merely flicked a glance his way, almost dismissive. "Sheppard."

"Kenmore." From the corner of his eye, John could see the other players from Shermer drifting over, casually eavesdropping on the conversation. Good, he had backup in case things got punchy. The other St Rait's boys were already in line, chatting among themselves, but John could see them also keeping a watchful eye on the situation. And Coach Caldwell was keeping a dark, measuring eye on them all from the corner where he was chatting with the restaurant manager.

John kept things light and offhand."Don't usually see you gracing this humble chain restaurant."

"Not usually in the vicinity." Kenmore's smile was more of a bare-teeth challenge. "But I know your team stops over here after most games, and I wanted a word with Teyla."

"And I see you've already had several."

"He is allowed several more," Teyla said in a voice that spelled trouble if John made anything more of this. Okay, so John wasn't always the most cluey of guys, but he knew that tone of voice meant that he should sit down and shut up, or risk being cut off at the balls.

Kenmore smiled once more, again, with a flash of pale teeth. "I'll use them carefully, then," he said, smiling at Teyla. "Are you doing anything Saturday night?"

It wasn't that anyone growled. John certainly didn't. But the atmosphere grew gently charged all the same. Maybe it was the way Slick Harrison and Kevin Padjamolous drifted back to the condiments table from the counter where they'd placed their orders, or the tall, tense figure of Ronon up and stalking towards them down the aisle of tables. Maybe it was just John's imagination.

"We're at Liz's this Saturday," John reminded her, pleased when Kenmore's eyes flickered over to him. He hadn't actually said it was a date or that they were going together, but it could be interpreted that way.

Teyla didn't even glance at John as she answered Kenmore. "I spend time with my friends on Saturday nights."

"So, I don't count as a friend?"

"Not yet," Teyla replied, a teasing twinkle in her eye. "You may have to work at that."

"Number sixty-four! Order for number sixy-four!"

Teyla glanced at her ticket, then over at the serving counter. "That is mine," she said, digging in her jacket pocket for the receipt.

"So are you free Sunday, then?"

John nearly opened his mouth but thought the better of it.

If Teyla was aware that at least half a dozen people were listening to this conversation and invite, she didn't give any hint of it as she answered. "I'll have to see."

"Order for number sixty-four!" The woman at the counter was getting annoyed and Teyla hastened to pick up her order. She didn't come back their way. Ronon neatly intercepted her on the way back, diverting her towards the gang before he continued on, shooting John a casual wink as he pushed the restroom door open.

It was as neat as any choreographed play and just as deliberate. Ronon didn't like Kenmore at all.

The expression John caught on Kenmore's face when he turned back was...unsettling. The guy was watching Teyla make her way across the restaurant the way a starving man looked at his next meal.

John had never thought that much of Kenmore other than as an opponent on the field. He wasn't thinking of the guy as a rival now - certainly not over Teyla - but he felt a brief spurt of active dislike at Kenmore's casual ogling.

Kenmore turned back to him, casual as a cat. "So is she still with the hockey guy?"

John played dumb. "The hockey guy?"

"The guy she was dating before."

"Is it any of your business?"

One hand ran through short blonde hair as the Rait grinned - a smile that was all teeth and little humour as the pale eyes turned back to track Teyla's progress across the room. "I'd like to make it my business."

Behind Kenmore, Harrison shifted, his eyes narrowing slightly. John caught his eye and shook his head slightly. Harrison shrugged and turned back to wait for his order.

"I'm just asking," said Kenmore. "I can find out from someone else."

"She's not." John figured that letting out that piece of information was okay.

Or maybe not, since Kenmore immediately turned on him "So is she with you?"

He thought about saying 'yes', just to get Kenmore off Teyla's back. And it was true in a way - Teyla was with him for the Homecoming dance, at least - just not the way that Kenmore intended.

"Number sixty-eight! Order number sixty-eight!"

Perfect timing. John smiled, pushed himself off the condiments bench, and went to get his order without answering Kenmore's question. The other guy might push for an answer, or he might not. Either way, John was going to let him stew.

It wasn't that he _wanted_ to date Teyla - she was a friend, one of his best players on the team, good company, good looking, and damned sexy on top of it. It was just that he didn't like Kenmore.

He particularly didn't like the smirk the other guy gave him as he walked past him to the drinks dispsenser, as though he not only knew of John's dislike, but was also amused by it. But he got his drink and headed out to where Liz was trying to orchestrate the takeover of the next table so there'd be enough room for Teyla, Ford, and John to sit down.

Maybe it said something that when his crowd of other friends skittered off elsewhere, the 'oddball' gang he'd left behind opened up to receive him back, no questions asked.

Well, _almost_ no questions asked. After all, one of the 'oddballs' was Rodney McKay.

Ford caught up with him halfway down the row. "You should have punched him in the face. I'd have backed you up."

"Would have felt good," John agreed. "But with Coach on the other side of the room and a restaurant full of people? We'd have been benched for next week's game."

"You think the Rait are here to stir the pot?"

John hadn't thought that, actually. But now that Ford mentioned it, it made sense. Rile the Shemer players, cause trouble, get at least a few players in trouble. If they were lucky, they might get a couple of players banned from the next game; at worst, they'd be walking into a grudgematch next Friday night. "Probably. Let's not give them a reason."

"Next week's game isn't enough reason?"

"Okay, let's not give them _more_ reason."

Teyla was already taking teasing from Laura and Ronon about Homecoming when John set his tray down opposite hers. Ford paused by them, intending to sit with them before he was called over by another group - one that included a girl John knew the junior had a crush on.

"You never said you were going with John," Laura was saying across the gap between the tables as John sat down. Her voice was just short of interrogation. "When did this happen! Details!"

"He only just asked," Teyla explained. "Before the game. That is why you have not heard it."

"Fast mover," Ronon muttered. Then he made a half-muffled choking noise. Liz had probably given him an elbow in the stomach to go with the severe look.

"Well, it's good that you've got someone to go with," Liz said, sitting back. "Both of you."

"And she only just said 'yes,'" John added. "When did Carson ask _you_ to Homecoming, Laura?"

The blonde girl smirked at her boyfriend. "He didn't. I asked him."

"I assumed we were going together," said Carson pointedly. "You weren't planning on going with anyone else, were you?"

"Oh, I thought about it for a moment, because Slick was being chatty last week, but-- Aah!" Laura's squeal of surprise as Carson pulled her towards him ended in a kiss that was long enough to make even John raise his eyebrows.

Rodney glanced up after a second or two and wrinkled his nose. "Get a room, you two. You're putting me off my food!"

"An extremely challenging enterprise," Teyla murmured, just loud enough for John to hear and grin. Rodney did love his food - even if he spent quite a lot of his time grumbling about his citrus allergies.

"Grow up, Rodney," Carson told him, exasperated.

"Or get a girlfriend," Laura added.

"Look, I'm already busy," Rodney snapped. "I don't have time for a girlfriend on top of everything else."

"Assuming anyone wanted you in the first place," Carson said.

"Cadman wanted _you_," came the reply. "And Liz is dating Ronon, so it can't be _that_ desperate. Besides, now that Teyla's finally succumbed to Sheppard--"

"_Finally_?" John asked. Rodney had made it sound like he'd been chasing Teyla for months or something.

"_Succumbed_?" Teyla queried, apparently equally miffed by Rodney's choice of words.

Ronon laughed. Loudly. "I think we should order a casket," he said.

"I think we should decide what we're going to do before the dance," Liz replied as she swirled a fry in ketchup before popping it in her mouth.

Ronon pulled back to look at her. "I thought we were doing dinner?"

"Well, I just thought that we could do dinner with everyone. A group dinner."

John glanced at Teyla. She seemed okay with the suggestion. A group dinner would make it feel less like a proper date, which was pretty important because they _weren't_ a couple like the others at the table. He'd asked her to Homecoming because they were friends and neither of them had dates. And because his usual internal censors had shut down during that conversation in the corridor and he'd blurted out the invitation before they managed to get up and running again. Not that John minded the way things had turned out, in fact, he was quite pleased with it.

Then there was Rodney to consider, who might or might not be going to Homecoming at all. If he was then the chances of him bringing a date along were unlikely. The only reason he'd taken Miko to the Founders' dance was because John had ribbed him about getting a date, and the little Japanese girl had been hanging off Rodney's every word at the time.

The Whitlams had it wrong. There was no aphrodisiac to Rodney McKay like a girl who thought he was the most amazing thing since sliced bread. It helped if she was blonde and pretty, of course, but brainy and adoring would suffice.

John picked up his burger. "Since you brought it up, I'm guessing you've already got something in mind?"

"Dinner at a restaurant," said Liz, immediately. "Santini's is offering a special deal for Homecoming - most of their dishes will be reduced for students from Shermer. It's a nice restaurant, they offer a varied menu, and we won't have to listen to Rodney insisting that they detail the practises by which each dish is created so he knows whether he can eat it or not."

Rodney pointed a fry in Liz's direction. "If you had to worry about dying from one drop of citrus, then you'd be detail-oriented, too." Then he jerked it back when Ronon lunged forward to snap at it with his teeth. "Hey. If you're that desperate, steal from Liz."

"So we'll be sharing the restaurant with the rest of the school?" John asked. "Sounds fun," he said sarcastically.

"Did you have a suggestion for somewhere else?"

John didn't.

Teyla shifted her grip on her burger, licking her fingers of the juices running down them. "Since Rodney is the one whose tastes must be accomodated, perhaps he should choose the restaurant?"

"Not Denny's," said Laura immediately. "Not Appleby's, any fast-food joint, or steakhouse."

"IHOP."

"Not that either."

"Look, it's not my fault I have allergies!"

"No, but it _is_ your fault that you won't try anything new!"

"The Melting Pot is supposed to be good," Ronon said.

Rodney spluttered his way through a mouthful of burger. "The Melting Pot is _expensive_."

"_Bloody_ expensive," Carson added.

John agreed, but didn't otherwise protest. Chaya had had expensive tastes, and while dating her, he'd gotten used to paying a lot of money for fancy things. Price didn't unnerve him so much anymore, although he'd still go for the simpler option if there was one.

"So?" Ronon asked, outrageous in his casual innocence. "Isn't Cadman worth it?"

Teyla made a muffled choking noise into her burger, the corners of her mouth upturned; Liz rolled her eyes and nudged Ronon, and Laura laughed out loud.

Rodney scowled. "This isn't a Maybelline commercial!"

"Maybe for the Prom," said Carson, hopefully.

"Maybelline for the Prom?" Liz murmured. Ronon nudged her.

"Live in the now, Beckett," Ronon said.

Teyla looked across at John as an argument started up between Ronon, Carson and Rodney about the dinner venue. "You do not have to pay for my meal, John."

"No," he agreed, quietly. "But I'm going to anyway."

"Because Ronon has stung your pride?" She smiled at him, more amused than offended.

"No, because I should."

The smile deepened, tinting her face with warm affection. "And if I said it was right for me to insist on paying my own way?"

"Then I'd say it's right for _me_ to get the tab - it's traditional. Why are you arguing, anyway? You're getting a free meal!"

"We are not dating, John."

Way to state the obvious. "Yeah, I get that. But it's _Homecoming_, Teyla. And we'll have run our asses off to _make_ it Homecoming the night before. Just...I don't know, pretend we _are_ dating, and leave it. I've got it covered."

She eyed him. "John..."

"Look, do you want me to take you off next week's line-up?"

Teyla snorted, disdainful. "That is not your decision. And you need me, anyway." But she knew he was teasing about benching her; she was smiling as she spoke. "All right."

"All right?"

"I will allow you to pay for dinner."

John restrained a smile at her attitude. "So magnanimous."

"You should appreciate it," she replied. "I do not let just anyone buy me dinner." The way she glanced up made his heart flip-flop for a moment, but the smile was still in place, so he guessed she was teasing.

"So I'm special?" John didn't bother with restraint at the look she gave him. He just grinned openly, and glanced over to see if the restaurant matter was resolved.

It wasn't.

"All right," he said, interrupting the madness. "It looks like Ronon and I will be taking Liz and Teyla to The Melting Pot. Rodney, Carson, Laura, you're welcome to join us."

Carson sat back in his chair, throwing up his hands. "Well," he said, his slight accent growing more pronounced with annoyance, "I guess that's one way to let down the home team!"

"Ow," said John, but grinning. "Come on, Carson. It won't be that bad."

"You don't have seven people in your family," Carson retorted. "All right, then. The Melting Pot it is."

Rodney huffed, then shrugged. "There better not be lemon."

"We can tell them about your allergies, Rodney," Liz said, having stayed out of the conversation until now. "And Carson, the menus at the Melting Pot are big enough that my parents and I can't finish their Big Night Out fondue set - cheese fondue, salad, entrée, and chocolate fondue. One of them will be enough for four of us. Three if it includes Ronon. Ow!"

She glared at Ronon who'd reached out and tugged at her ponytail. "What?"

"You're getting cheeky."

"You're getting bold," she retorted, tweaking one of his dreadlocks.

Ronon caught her wrist. "Hands off the dreads."

Liz just pulled out the other hand and tugged at another dreadlock - with predictable results.

As the by-play started, John rolled his eyes. He'd never figured Liz to be the touchy-feely type. It seemed Ronon had changed her mind on that front.

Teyla had paused in her eating and was watching their friends with an odd expression on her face. It took her a moment to realised he was watching, and a dusky flush stole across her skin. "They are enjoying themselves."

It took him a moment to realise that she was wistful. Until a couple of days ago, Teyla had been in a relationship with Mark Lorne. He'd forgotten it in the hours between their conversation in the locker rooms and this moment, sitting across from her in the Steak 'n Shake.

Then again, until a couple of weeks ago, he'd been in a relationship with Chaya Sar. One that ended with her dumping him for another guy. And didn't John wish he could forget _that_!

He wondered why Teyla and Lorne had broken up.

"Shermer Panthers! Ten minutes before the bus leaves!" Coach's voice rang through the restaurant, prompting groans from the players who'd sat down with their friends.

John realised he was staring - and that Teyla was staring back at him. "Sorry?"

"I did not say anything," she said, a smile touching her lips. "You were in deep thought, and I would not wish to interrupt that."

"Because I don't think too often?"

She had dimples when she smiled. "I did not say it."

"Thanks."

"So," Carson glanced over at them, "are you two coming around to the Coffee Pot later?"

"Yes," said Teyla.

John hadn't been planning on it, but now he wondered if he should. "I'll see," he said. "But I can give you a lift over."

"What else were you going to do on a Friday night?" Teyla asked. "Homework?"

"Shh," He leaned forward. "Don't say it too loudly - it summons more of it!"

Dimples flashed, then faded into a soft snicker. "You have not been out with us in some time," she pointed out.

"And I'm over at Liz's tomorrow night," he pointed out. He hadn't been out with the others for a while - partly because he hadn't been in the most magnanimous of moods when Liz started going out with Ronon, and partly because he'd started dating Chaya about the same time and she hadn't wanted to hang out with the others.

So maybe he'd been a little too caught up while dating Chaya. Between school work, football, and trying to keep up with having a girlfriend, John had been busy these last couple of months. He'd been so busy that, a week before the break-up, Rodney had complained he never saw John anymore. When Rodney noticed that people weren't spending time with him, then things were _bad_ - Rodney rarely noticed anything other than his projects and Ms. Carter, the Physics teacher.

"You led the team to victory," Teyla said, brushing a wisp of fringe from her face. "Does that not entitle you to a night off?"

Well, maybe it did. And now that he didn't have Chaya suggesting they do stuff with her friends, he could spend some time with _his_ friends again.

He started to answer, then realised Teyla's attention was elsewhere. Across the restaurant, the tall, blond profile of Michael Kenmore turned back at the door with a smile for Teyla before sauntering out the door among the other Rait.

John's eyes narrowed briefly, but all he said when Teyla turned back was, "Maybe it does."

--

"You guys don't wanna come over?" Lichfield asked in the school parking lot. "My brother's downloaded some of the latest movies and we're going to watch on Dad's plasma." He waggled his eyebrows. "_The Omen_! Now showing at Lichfield cinema!"

Teyla laughed. "Thank you, but no."

Lichfield rolled his eyes. "Fine. Sheppard?"

John popped the trunk of his car and dumped his gear in, holding it open for Teyla. "No, not tonight."

"Got a headache?" Lichfield quipped archly. Then his eyes flicked to Teyla as she put her stuff in the trunk. He lowered his voice, barely loud enough for John to hear. "Don't blame you."

"Lichfield..." He didn't need this, and neither did Teyla.

The other guy just grinned. "See you guys at practice tomorrow."

As they climbed into the car, John reflected that asking Teyla to Homecoming might not have been the most strategic decision he'd ever made given that he was the captain of the football team and she was the only girl player on the team.

Too bad. He'd asked, she'd accepted. They'd deal.

At least they weren't dating.

"You can go to Lichfield's house if you wish," Teyla said as they drove out of the parking lot. It wasn't a fancy car, just a station wagon, although he was allowed to borrow his mom's car for important events. Like Homecoming.

John gave her a sideways look. "I said I didn't want to."

"I thought..." She paused. "I thought that perhaps you felt responsible for getting me to the café."

"Well, I do. But you already pointed out that I haven't been socialising with you guys lately."

They passed several streetlights before Teyla answered. "You have been missed."

"So Rodney tells me."

"Rodney told you?"

"Who else would?"

"Elizabeth. Carson."

John thought about that for a moment. "I figured they were busy dating and all that stuff."

"Dating does not mean you forget your friends," Teyla said.

They were at a set of lights, so John turned to look at her, wondering if she'd meant to be as severe as she sounded. "Is that a criticism?" He tried to keep his voice level and had a feeling he failed.

"If you wish to take it as such."

"Don't be snippy."

One delicate eyebrow arched. "Do not be over-sensitive."

John scowled and looked back at the road as the lights went green. "So if, say, you started dating Michael Kenmore, we'd still see you at these hang outs?"

Her silence was deafening, even with the rumble of the low-volume bass filtering through the back speakers. "I am not dating him."

"Not yet, maybe." Okay, so probably not the wisest thing to say. Why give her ideas?

"Are you implying--?"

John was, but he wasn't going to go there. "I'm saying it's pretty obvious he's interested."

He saw her glance out the window as the neon lights of a group of restaurants flashed past them. "Would I be thrown off the football team if I began going out with Michael?"

"No," was John's immediate response. It was an honest answer, at least from him. He wouldn't like it, but throwing her off the team for her choice of guy wasn't any more sane than throwing any of the guys off the team for their choice of girlfriend - at least, not to John. How the _other_ guys would look at it, or even Coach Caldwell, was another matter. Bates would have a field day. But it wasn't a crime to date a player from another team.

It just wasn't very common.

"Would you bring Kenmore along to one of these nights if you were dating him?"

"I am not, so it does not matter."

"But if you were?"

"Ronon would not be pleased."

"And Liz probably wouldn't have been too happy with Chaya around."

Teyla looked at him. "You underestimate her graciousness. Or overestimate her feelings for you."

"Are you saying Ronon's got a crush on you?"

She rolled her eyes. "Ronon does not suffer the Rait. Any of them. It is a very different situation."

"You guys wouldn't have wanted Chaya around."

"And you do not want Michael around should I ever begin dating him," said Teyla.

John noted that she hadn't denied that Chaya hadn't been welcome among the gang. Then he frowned at her admission that dating the St. Rait's guy was even a possibility. He didn't trust Kenmore at all - and it had nothing to do with the traditional enmity between Shermer and St. Rait's and everything to do with the way the guy had watched Teyla. Of course, he wasn't going to _say_ that. Bad enough that they were even having this conversation.

"You said that dating doesn't mean you forget your friends," he said, steering the conversation back to the original topic. "I'm telling you that not coming along wasn't about 'forgetting friends' - it was about being comfortable. Both Liz and Carson are dating and still hang around with the group because Ronon and Laura are okay with that. If you're dating someone who isn't so happy to be around your friends, you try to find places where you're both comfortable."

"Or avoid being seen as joined at the hip," Teyla murmured.

"Or that." He glanced at her. "How did you and Lorne do it?"

In the passenger seat, she stiffened, her chin went up, and she looked pointedly out the window.

John sighed. Open mouth, insert foot, learn something new.

Topic Number One to avoid mentioning around Teyla right now: Mark Lorne. Obviously, it _had_ been a bad breakup, even if her game hadn't suffered.

Oh well. Sure, John was curious. But he wasn't _that_ curious.

He turned up the music, flipping through the various channels until he found a song he liked, letting the warm, easy tones fill the car and take away the need for conversation.

But when they climbed out of the car in the parking lot, John glanced at her over the roof of the car. "Look, Teyla--"

"Thank you for the ride, John." There was nobody on the planet who could sound as prim and polite as Teyla Emmagen when she had her back up.

"Dammit, quit being bitchy, Teyla. I'm just trying to help."

"You think I am being bitchy?" Her eyes narrowed. "I will quit being 'bitchy' if you will quit being pushy, John."

John snorted at that. "All right, then." He locked the car and waited for her to come around the front. "I was just asking."

Teyla kept a slight distance as they trudged across the chilly parking lot, like she didn't want to get too close to him. John didn't sigh, but as they reached the entrance to the coffee shop, he blocked her entry into the building. "Are you going to freeze me out every time Mark Lorne comes up in conversation?"

"I have had enough of people asking questions," she said coldly.

"Yeah, well, I'm not people. I get the the breakup between you and Lorne is private. But I don't gossip."

The dark eyes studied him for a long moment. "I apologise. It is not a comfortable topic."

"Break-ups aren't." John could say that.

Teyla's mouth set in a straight line, but she nodded after a moment. "Are we still going to Homecoming?"

"Together? Yeah. Unless you want to dump me, too." Okay, so the 'too' was probably unnecessary. He hadn't meant for it to slip out. And he really hoped she wouldn't ask.

She didn't, although the moment's silence gave him pause. A car squealed through the parking lot, turning both their heads. When John looked back, Teyla nodded once. "Then we are going to Homecoming together."

"Good." John felt relieved that they were still okay. He didn't examine it too closely - it was just the reassurance that he didn't need to go hunting yet _another_ date for Homecoming. Instead, he pushed open the door and they entered the café together.

- **TBC** -

**NOTES**: Thank you so much to the people leaving reviews! It's been a rough couple of months and your feedback is incredibly uplifting, encouraging me to keep going at this. I've got the story plotted out, and am presently writing Part 7 - there's a lot to the tale - but there may be some delay before the next part is posted, depending on how many snags I hit while writing this section.


	4. pep talks

**Intro to Shermer - Part III**: Uh. Rodney McKay. Brilliant guy - skipped a grade. Probably could have skipped several, but he's not so good in the social department. Don't ask him a simple question. In fact, don't ask him anything at all unless you're _really_ sure you want to know the answer. A 'yes/no' query can take him an hour to reason out.

**In The Game**

**iv. pep talks**

"So," Rodney said in the middle of Trigonometry homework. "You and Teyla, eh?"

It was a typical Saturday afternoon, spent over at Rodney's house since his mom made choc-chip cookies that went part of the way towards explaining why Rodney wasn't a lean, mean, sporting machine, and doing homework in fits and starts while watching bits of whatever college football game was currently playing.

As homework subjects went, John was pretty good at Trig. Obviously not as good as Rodney, but then, Rodney was a genius. As he kept reminding everyone. Modesty was not one of Rodney McKay's faults. And it certainly wasn't one of his virtues.

Neither was tact.

John didn't look up from calculating double sines and cosines. "It's just Homecoming."

"Just Homecoming?"

"Just Homecoming. Look, I wasn't going to ask her in the first place. The fact that I did was...a surprise. Like temporary insanity."

Rodney made a noisy sound of disbelief. "Hm. And have you told Teyla this? Because she and everyone else - including me, I might add - seems to be under the impression that you're _happy_ to be taking her to Homecoming."

"I am!"

"In that case, 'temporary insanity' is not a good defence for explaining your choice of date to anyone. Even _I _know that."

John crossed out an answer that was wrong and started from the beginning again. "I meant it was temporary insanity in that I'd never even thought of asking her until that moment. I was asking if she was okay after her break-up."

"You were _worried_ about her break-up with Lorne?"

Great, now he had to explain the backstory, too. "I was worried about her game - Bates had mentioned she broke up with Lorne and I wanted to check that her game wasn't going to suffer."

"Uhuh." Rodney dismissed that topic and promptly plunged into another. "You know, she's been doing pretty well in Pre-Calc. I'd recommend Calculus next year if she wants to go into a scientific field."

John wrote out a set of answers and hoped they were right. "Who died and made you the guidance counsellor?"

Rodney's pen moved across the page, effortlessly keeping track of the numbers and letters as he spoke. "Well, if people are going to ask me for educational advice..."

"They ask, or you tell them anyway?"

"Well, maybe a bit of both." Rodney shrugged. "I'm impressed that her grades are holding steady. Although I shouldn't be. If she's stubborn enough to get on the football team and stay on it, then she's not lazy."

"No-one on the varsity football team's lazy," said John. "We wouldn't have them if they were."

"Well, yes, I suppose that's true. But then, most of the jocks on the team aren't...intellectual."

"Rodney, I hate to break it to you, but I'm doing this so I get reasonable marks, not out of any love of Trig." John stuck his finger in the textbook and flipped back a few pages for the rule that he was pretty sure he had right but just wanted to check. "So is Teyla. And everyone else you're torturing...I mean, tutoring."

"Ha-ha. Don't give up your day job. And Zelenka's not."

John looked up, scornfully. "Rodney, you're a geek. You attract similarly geeky people - like Zelenka. It's like...magnets."

"Magnets?"

"Yup."

"So how does that explain you?"

"Pure self-interest," said John. "You help me get good marks."

"I help a lot of people get good marks. They're usually grateful. In fact, I was _hoping_ that Teyla might choose to show her gratefulness by going to Homecoming with me - you know, sporty, good-looking girl goes out with intelligent, loveable geek..."

"We're talking about Zelenka, aren't we?"

"...only to be pipped at the post by the jock captain of the football team."

"Pipped at the post?" John asked, letting the question of jock-ness pass for the moment.

"Er. Means to be overtaken at the last moment. Outmanuevred."

"Outclassed?"

Rodney scowled. "Did you _want_ to pass Trig?"

John just grinned before he turned back to his work. For a few minutes, there was no sound but the noise of the game between USC and Arkansas, and John got through four more problems before Rodney got tired of keeping silent.

"Hm. So what's the deal with Michael Kenmore? First he turns up at the game, then makes an appearance at the Steak 'n Shake - isn't that a bit..." Rodney paused. "Ostentatious? I mean, if you want to scout how your opponents are playing, that's one thing, but turning up at a restaurant full of supporters afterwards? Is just insane."

John finished the equation before he lost his train of thought. These problems were harder than the ones he'd been doing earlier and if he had to do them then he was going to get them right first time.

"Then again, I suppose, nobody's ever said the Rait were sane," Rodney mused.

"I suppose nobody's ever said you have a really bad habit of thinking out loud." There wasn't any point in continuing, John decided. Rodney was going to have his say and John would just have to deal.

"Thinking out loud is better than not thinking at all!"

He didn't bother to stifle his grin as he tipped the chair back on two legs. "Ford thought Kenmore was trying to start a fight."

"Again with the sanity question." Rodney reached out to pull the cookie jar over. "You know, I don't even know why I bother. You sporty types are all the same."

"Have too many of those and you won't enjoy dinner," John warned before swinging down to reach for the jar himself. He chose to ignore Rodney's natural bias against 'jocks' and 'sporty types'. If they got into that kind of argument, they'd never stop.

The other guy shrugged, brushing crumbs off his 'genius' t-shirt. "It's just pizza."

"Isn't there a saying about a dinner of herbs with friends?"

"Please. I'm a genius, not a little book of quotes." Rodney's cat wound its way under their chairs, snuffling for cookie crumbs. Felix would eat anything that fell off the table. He would also caterwaul when picked up by anyone but Rodney - then, he purred with enough force to provide the energy requirements for a third-world country. "You know, I'll never get why the Weirs allow us to take over their house on Saturday nights."

Sometimes John wondered that, too. "Because we're a wholesome and encouraging influence on Liz?"

Rodney snorted. "Try saying it with a straight face."

--

"He shoots, he scores!" The piece of pepperoni landed smack in the middle of Rodney's glass and a wave of soda swept up the sides of the glass like a miniature tsunami, sloshing across the coffee table and endangering various magazines that were piled there.

Rodney picked it out with an expression of disgust. "Sheppard!"

"Don't even _think_ of throwing it back at him, Rodney," Liz said as Teyla quietly rescued the magazines and tucked them on the ledge beneath the bevelled glass top.

Ronon chuckled. "Too late."

"Teyla, leave it for John to clean up," Liz said, giving John's beanbag a nudge with her toe.

"Later," he said.

The beanbag moved again. "John…"

"I said I'll do it," he grumbled. "At least wait until the episode's over."

"If you had time to play basketball with your pepperoni and Rodney's drink, then you're not watching the episode."

For a moment, John considered the prospect of staying right where he was. Then he realised she wasn't going to let up. This was _Liz_. He huffed as he hauled himself up and went into the kitchen for the dishcloth, ignoring Rodney and Ronon's smirks and Teyla's smile.

Saturday nights had always been associated with the Weir household for John. He and Rodney had been semi-regular visitors on Saturday nights since the long-ago afternoon they'd rocked up to check out the new neighbours and found Liz bossing her dog around the yard as they watched the movers take things in.

The Weirs were good-natured about the friends their daughter had acquired, informally adopting John and Rodney and bearing with everything from boisterous arguments over every tiny detail, to all-night movie nights, and the occasional shrieking argument between their daughter and one of the other two when she got tired of one, the other, or both.

"Do you need the carpet cleaner?" Liz's mom's voice broke through from the connected breakfast room as John began running the dishcloth under the tap.

John poked his head around the corner. "Not yet."

"Good. See that you don't." Her words were severe, but when she glanced up from her notes, she was smiling.

He went out to the TV room smiling. Megan was good that way. High powered lawyer; really cool mom. He envied Liz her mom.

"While you're at it, Sheppard, you can get me another drink," Rodney said, holding up his glass.

John was about to retort that Rodney could get his own, when Teyla rose to her feet with her plate in hand. She took the glass from Rodney. "I will do it," she said.

"I'll do it," Liz said, just as neatly taking both glass and plate out of Teyla's hand. "I should be hostessing."

"Suits me," Ronon said, stretching his legs out across sofa cushions where Liz had been seated.

Liz pointed Teyla's empty glass at him like a weapon. "You'll keep for later."

Ronon just smirked and folded his hands on his stomach. "Counting on it."

"Teyla, what drink?"

"Just water, please."

"Rodney?"

"Coke. I don't need to mention no lime? Ow!" Teyla had poked him in the ribs.

"Say please!"

Rodney muttered something beneath his breath. "Please."

John grinned as he followed Liz into the kitchen.

"Do you want me to go downstairs and get--?" He broke off as she pulled a 2L bottle of Coca-cola from the fridge and indicated the others sitting in the fridge door. "Okay. So the drinks aren't mostly kept downstairs anymore?"

"You wouldn't believe how fast Ronon goes through a bottle of soda," Liz explained as she poured Rodney's drink.

"I can imagine," John muttered.

He didn't mean to sound sulky, but maybe he did, because Liz closed the fridge with a rattling thump. "You haven't been around much lately."

John's eyes narrowed. "That's what Teyla said."

"Well, she's right." Liz crossed the kitchen to get some water from the purifier tap. "You started dating Chaya and then you vanished from radar." She had the 'I'm not going to get mad' voice out - it was nice Liz, but it had an edge.

"All right!" He snapped. "I got too involved with dating Chaya. It won't happen again."

"It better not," she retorted. "Because if you go back to a girl who dumped you for another guy then you need your head examined!"

"I meant--" John stopped. She knew what he meant - and she knew he knew she knew. "Well, you won't have to worry about it for a while anyway."

"True." Her expression shifted, growing shrewd. "You know, you once threatened never to ask Teyla out."

"I did? When?"

Liz rolled her eyes at him. "Back before the Founders' Dance."

"That was months ago!" Trust a girl to remember something like that! Although now that she mentioned it... Yeah, he remembered making a joke about asking Teyla to Founders' - mostly to piss off Liz - only to be turned down because Teyla claimed she wanted to play the field.

Huh. He'd forgotten that.

"Only two," Liz was saying as she poured Teyla's water.

John shrugged. He was pretty sure he'd been joking at the time, and even if he hadn't, who cared? John had gone to Founder's Dance with Chaya, and Teyla had ended up dating Lorne.

He glanced back to the TV room, listening for the sound of the show playing and lowered his voice so the others couldn't hear this conversation. "Do you know what's the deal with Teyla's breakup with Lorne?"

Liz looked startled, then thoughtful. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because I'm taking her to Homecoming?" John said. "And because she and Lorne seemed fine a couple of weeks ago and suddenly it's over."

"You think I'm going to tell you?"

"I'm hoping you will," he admitted. John told himself he wasn't prying - and he wasn't. He was just making sure he didn't get into trouble like he had last night.

Liz paused in the act of putting the water jug back in the fridge and frowned. "Teyla wouldn't go out with you on the rebound if that's what you're thinking."

"Like I care if she's on the rebound or not! We're not dating, we're just going to Homecoming together!"

Eyebrows lifted and John flushed at his outburst. At least he hadn't raised his voice loud enough for the others to hear.

It was a little annoying how all his friends assumed that John had some ulterior motive for asking Teyla to Homecoming. It was really just easier to go with Teyla than to navigate a date with a girl who _did_ have a crush on him and might take things the wrong way.

John didn't need a girlfriend. He didn't _want_ a girlfriend. And he didn't want someone claiming he'd broken her heart because he'd been giving off the wrong signals while being friendly.

Teyla was just a friend. She knew John flirted and teased and it didn't bother her. She knew the rules - she was _safe_.

John liked it that way.

"I know why they broke up." Liz said at last. "But I'm not going to tell you."

He scowled. He'd been counting on Liz to give him the lowdown. "Is this girl stuff?"

"Yes."

Which basically screwed him. John neither wanted nor needed to know about the stuff that the girls confided in each other. But Teyla's reaction last night had been...excessive. And her eyes had been red from crying when John confronted her in the locker rooms.

She'd cared about the breakup. Which meant it hadn't been her doing the dumping.

"Was another girl involved?" Maybe he had more in common with Teyla than he'd thought.

"No," Liz said flatly. John had a feeling she wasn't telling the whole truth.

"Come on," he coaxed. "Just a hint."

"No."

"It might keep me out of trouble."

She snorted at that, picking up both glasses. "It would take more than a hint to keep _you_ out of trouble, John."

He was going to retort that he stayed well out of trouble most of the time, thank you very much, but Liz trumped all arguments by neatly sailing out of the kitchen and back to the others.

John sighed and went back out.

It looked like he was on his own for this one.

--

Ronon stretched his legs out on the grass of the lawn where they were having morning break.

"She saw Kenmore on the weekend."

"Huh?" It took John a moment to pull his brain together. He blamed it on Mara Tower's cleavage, which was displayed for every guy with eyes to see - and any girls that swung that way.

Ronon followed John's gaze and his eyebrows rose. "Teyla saw Kenmore on the weekend," he said, tracking Mara as she bounced...er...walked across the schoolyard.

"She said she was going to."

That jerked Ronon's head around. "What?"

John squashed the instinctive cringe as Ronon's voice rose above the chatter. What Ronon took for granted - the easy distinction from the cliques and groups of Shermer's senior class - John was only just accustoming himself to.

The group of friends he used to sit with were presently over on the senior lawn, cosying up to Jeff Mann, Chaya's new squeeze. Being a new student at Shermer, and a spoiled brat of a rich kid, Jeff felt no loyalty or fairness towards the captain of the football team when it came to stealing his girlfriend.

What burned John more was that several of his friends from that group had guessed that Chaya was interested in someone else and never said anything to him. And only a handful of them still talked to him - most of them were too busy avoiding eye contact and being embarrassed since Jeff was the centre of attention among that crowd.

John had been dumped by more than just Chaya in the space of a couple of weeks.

Fine. Screw them.

And he never thought he'd be thankful for Ronon Dex's arrival at Shermer, but he was.

"Friday night, at the restaurant." John answered Ronon's question. "Kenmore was flirting with her. She was flirting back."

Ronon sat up like someone had yanked his strings. "And you didn't _do_ anything?"

"What should I have done?"

"Beat him up."

It was such a simple solution, John reflected to himself. He went for the explanation he'd given Ford on Friday. "If I'd laid a hand on him last Friday, I'd be benched for this Friday."

"So beat him up _this_ Friday _after_ the game." Ronon lowered himself back down on his elbows again.

There was definitely something to be said for simplicity. "I'll take it into consideration."

"Hey, if you don't, I will."

John frowned. "Since when is Teyla's love life so interesting to you?" Sure, there'd always been rumours about Teyla and Ronon since the day Ronon had pinned her in Fight Club, but John had never given them any validity.

Maybe he should have.

Ronon shrugged and bared his teeth. "Better you than Kenmore."

Okay. So only Ronon would look at it like that _and_ say it out loud. Well, Rodney might, too. But Rodney was Rodney.

"You know," John said sourly, "you do _wonders_ for my ego."

"What are friends for?" There was a decidedly wicked tilt to the other guy's grin as he looked at John. "So you're not interested?"

He gritted his teeth. "No." It wasn't a case of being interested or not. After Chaya, John didn't want to find himself blindly running after any girl - even Teyla. _Especially_ Teyla. "It's just Homecoming." He wondered how many more times he'd have to say it before his friends got it.

Once seemed to be enough for Ronon.

"Okay."

They sat in comfortable silence for a while longer, while John debated whether or not he should ask Ronon about Kenmore.

John figured he knew Ronon Dex about as well as any guy in the school. After John dealt with the realisation that Liz Weir was dating someone other than Simon Wallis - who'd been about as stiff as a board and twice as starched as one of those old collars - he'd discovered that Ronon was a pretty cool guy to hang out with.

But the guy had his quirks and his past. He had a history with a local gang or two, although he refused to tell John anything about them and only insisted that he wasn't involved with them anymore.

It wasn't as though he'd had much choice to trust Ronon - not when both Liz and Teyla were on his side - but John had soon found he did.

It helped that _Teyla_ trusted Ronon. And John trusted Teyla. It was all links in a chain, and John could manage that.

But Ronon's hatred of Kenmore was...intense. Almost personal. It made John wonder if there was history there, and, if so, what?

He wasn't Rodney, though. He knew better than to ask.

"You'd better beat them."

"Huh?"

"St. Rait's. You'd better beat them this weekend."

That sounded like a threat. "Or else...?"

Ronon just bared his teeth in a feral grin. "Or else I might have to beat you up."

John snorted. "Teyla will beat you up if you do."

"And Elizabeth will beat _her_ up."

They both considered that image for a moment. "Maybe not," Ronon conceded after a moment. He flopped back on the grass, dreadlocks akimbo.

"No," John agreed, leaning back on his arms. Liz was feisty, sure; but not a physical fighter. And Teyla had both athleticism and fighting skill working in her favour.

He should probably go over to where Mara was posturing and posing with her friends and do some chatting up. It never hurt to have his hand in, even if he didn't need a date. He just couldn't really be bothered right now, though. It was just a quiet morning break, no disturbances, all good.

A gaggle of girls tittered their way down the path beside the lawn, and Teyla trailed behind them, not really part of the group, just tracing the same path from class to class as she exchanged notes with a guy from one of her classes. The guy was talking and she was listening, even as her eyes rested on the notes he'd given her.

John frowned. There was something about the way the guy was angling himself as he spoke to Teyla. Something...ingratiating.

Teyla stopped and looked up, startled by whatever he'd said. Then she flushed, looked down and away, and shook her head. The guy said something else, and she looked up.

She looked straight at John.

He was pretty sure it wasn't intentional, just a casual clash of eyes. And the warm pleasure in his stomach was just the satisfaction of knowing he'd be going to Homecoming with a partner that other guys wished _they_ had. John cocked a smile at her and got a quick smile in return before the guy turned to see who she was looking at.

John lifted a hand to wave and watched the guy colour and Teyla sigh. She grabbed at her companion's arm and tugged him along without looking at John again.

Probably explaining that it was just a date for Homecoming, not really dating.

"Sheppard?"

"Hm?" He'd forgotten about Ronon, sprawled out on the grass like a cat, without an apparent care in the world. "What?"

"You'd better win against St. Rait's."

John settled back on the grass. "You already said that."

"No," Ronon said, and he jerked his head towards the school fence. "You _have_ to win against St. Rait's."

There was a tow-haired figure standing in the street, watching the yard. Had he been keeping an eye out for Teyla all this time? One hand lifted, waved at John, and he could just pick out the narrow-eyed smirk on the pointed face.

Then Kenmore tucked his hands in his pockets and casually strolled off down the road.

"Bastard," Ronon muttered. "If you don't take care of him on Friday, then I will."

"Do you mean 'take care of him' or do you mean '_take care_ of him'?"

Again the toothy grin. "Whichever. Just win the game."

It was probably better not to question it. This was Ronon, after all.

"Believe me," John told Ronon, "We'll definitely be trying."

- **TBC** -


	5. full of grace

**In The Game  
(A Tale Of Shermer High)****  
**

**v. full of grace**

John had a lot of good memories from Homecoming that year.

--

Mara Tower's knuckles occasionally brushed against the small of John's back as she sewed him into a cheerleader skirt for the 'cheer squad demo'. It was probably casual, although, knowing Mara, possibly not.

If he hadn't already been going to Homecoming with Teyla, John might have considered Mara as a date.

Maybe, when all this was over, he'd ask Mara out and see where things went.

"At least you're not as big as Evan," she said, her voice slightly muffled as she plied needle and thread in and out of her spare skirt. "We couldn't even get the zipper up on him. Good thing he's wearing white jocks. There, you go." She stood up and grinned at him, daringly resting her hands on his hips as she looked around his shoulder. "Ready to go and wow them?"

In the hot pink eyeliner someone had dug out of their purse - and John hoped to God that the makeup remover Teyla had would get this stuff off their faces, or it would be the Shermer High Transvestites playing St. Rait's Basilisks tonight, instead of the Shermer High Panthers - John figured that he was going to wow _someone_.

If nothing else, it might get a few laughs out of the crowd.

John nearly asked for a kiss for good luck. Which might have taken him anywhere and gotten him into all kinds of trouble - Mara wasn't exactly a shy girl - if not for a slew of appreciative murmurs and a wolf whistle from the corridor outside.

"Do not even _think_ of saying anything, Slick," Teyla was saying when John poked his head out the door into one of the waiting rooms backstage.

Harrison hadn't needed sewing into his cheerleader's outfit, although it looked like a dress on a scarecrow. However, he had a grin the size of Texas on his skinny face, and the reason was standing in front of him, looking _very_ un-scarecrow-like indeed.

Unlike some of the other schools in the area, Shermer had an all-girls cheerleading squad. That was probably going to change in the next couple of years, especially after Teyla had earned her position on the football team. Apparently equal opportunity went both ways.

At any rate, there were no guy-cheerleaders, and therefore, no guy-cheerleader outfits, so about half the football team was eased, buttoned, zipped, squished, and sown into traditional cheerleader outfits.

The results were mixed - at least when it came to the guys.

When it came to Teyla, the outfit was definitely an unmitigated success.

It was never possible to _entirely_ forgot that Teyla was a girl. But in the padding they wore to practise, it wasn't too hard to just think of her as another player.

There wasn't any padding in a cheerleader outfit.

There was only a little padding on Teyla, and all of it was what John was going to mentally refer to as 'girl padding' so as not to get himself in trouble.

"Who's said anything about _thinking_?" Harrison quipped with the casual confidence of a guy teasing a girl he was pretty sure could take it.

"You fail to do that most of the time anyway, Slick," Ford retorted.

"Then Teyla's not in much danger of me making a smart comments."

Laura Cadman snorted, her arms full of striped cheerleader skirt. "Yeah, and hell is due for a cold spell."

Teyla rolled her eyes but only turned to Cadman. "There will be photos?"

"Oh, you can count on it. Carson's got it covered," Cadman said as she sailed down the corridor, smirking at John as she passed. "Nice legs, Sheppard."

John stepped out of the room and was about to answer her when Mara goosed him, nearly making him jump. He narrowed his eyes at her and got a saucy smirk in return before she sashayed out of the backstage area. Definitely not a shy girl.

"You'd better get out there," said Annette Myers, the cheerleading captain

Teyla nodded, shot one glance around the backstage waiting room, and shook her head. Then she bounded out of the change room with a flirt of the skirt that would have done a professional cheerleader proud. Annette glanced around at the boys, shook her head, and followed after.

"I vote that we kill Sheppard after the game tonight," Harrison said in a mock-whisper, glancing around at the assembled guys in their cheerleading outfits. "Then Teyla might go to Homecoming with one of us. Who's with me?"

"Ha-ha," John retorted. "Knowing Teyla, she'd probably just go stag." Or she'd take Rodney as a date.

"A man can hope," Harrison said as he sat down, and stretched out his legs, pulling the neck of his outfit open to stare down into the space where his boobs would have gone if he'd had any boobs to speak of. "You know, I think I need some oranges here."

John checked out his own rack - or lack thereof. "I think I might need a couple of cantaloupe," he quipped, and received a few raucous smirks from the others and a butt smack from Mara as she sashayed past.

"Don't even think about it," said Annette as she came back in. "You wreck that uniform, Slick, and I'll tear strips off you. Same goes for you, John." She turned to regard the ten guys who'd volunteered to dress up and perform a cheerleading routine pre-game. "All right, boys. Line up and let's see you."

They shuffled along, trying to get used to the lack of material around their thighs and the tightness of the stretchy tops. Annette took a look along the line and heroically tried not to laugh - then gave up when Harrison started primping and posing. "Well," she said at last, "At least Teyla's presentable. Pity she's only doing the announcing."

"Just for the record, I can't believe I'm doing this," Ford muttered.

Harrison stuck his hand on his hip, stuck his hip way out in left field and lisped, "Ford, you just gotta lie back and think of the team."

"Oh, God," said John. "Bad imagery."

"So, this is classed as taking one for the team?" Ford asked, looking like he wanted to smile but didn't dare. "I knew I should have gone for hockey instead. They don't have to do this."

"Too much, too soon; too little, too late," Lichfield commented. His eyeshadow was a lurid blue, and the lipstick was slut-red. The effect was...disturbing. Really disturbing.

There was a clatter in the doorway as Ms. Doran appeared. "Well, well," she said, her husky voice amused. "I see we've got them cleaned up and squeezed into the uniforms. Very good." The drama teacher jerked one shoulder at the corridor behind her. "You're on after the next act, so you'd better get up there."

"All right," Annette said as the guys stood up and began filing out. "Try not to screw up too badly, okay?"

"So comforting, Annette," John commented as he rubbed at his lipstick, then grimaced at the smudges on his fingers.

"I know," she said, producing a tissue with which she cleared the smudge away. "You won't win any championships for cheerleading, I can tell you that. But you might get a few cheers."

--

Mostly, what they got from the 'cheer squad demo' was laughs.

Which was okay and expected, even when half of the boys forgot which way they were supposed to be stepping and what moves they were supposed to be doing.

It was chaos. Funny chaos, but chaos all the same.

John much preferred it when they jogged onto the field in their regular uniforms; their faces clear of makeup, and their dignity mostly intact. _Then_ they got cheered.

As it turned out, they needed it. The game against St. Rait's was tight.

_Really_ tight.

Highlights included Ford making a forty-yard dash to score a touchdown which was promptly converted, and the personal satisfaction of tackling Michael Kenmore to the ground and 'accidentally' planting a hand in the Rait's belly when getting back up again.

The lowlights included watching St. Rait's score three touchdowns, the most recent one - the one that put St. Rait's firmly ahead - scored by Kenmore to the dismal roaring of blood in John's ears.

Not even John's fist in Kenmore's belly compensated for _that_.

They were in the last quarter with less than two minutes to go, and St Rait's was winning - 15-20.

John had the ball.

Someone slammed into him, tacking hard and solid. John hissed as his shoulder hit the ground. He caught a glimpse of pale eyes and pale hair beneath the shadows of the helmet, and glared up into Michael Kenmore's face as his shoulder protested at the abuse, along with his legs, his knees, and his right ankle.

Kenmore offered a hand up in a mockery of good sportsmanship. He'd see John beaten to a bloody pulp if he had the choice and they both knew it. "Having fun?"

"Heaps," John said flatly, taking the hand up. _Kill him with kindness now. You can kill him off the field later._

"Good," hissed the other guy, grinning. "I am."

It had been like this all night. Kenmore had made the game personal - between him and John. Each time they met on the field, the pale smirk was like a challenge - a slap in John's teeth.

And John wasn't going to deny that he'd made it personal right back at the Rait. But he wasn't going to start a fight. Not right now, anyway.

"You should," John muttered as he walked away. "You won't be for much longer."

There was something to be said for Ronon's directness.

The next play - the Trench Run - got them ten yards. The next play lost them five.

Then one of the tailbacks fumbled the ball.

John saw it slip out of Gregson's reach in slow motion, saw Kenmore scoop it up. He lunged after the Rait, but his fingers slipped off nylon and padding. It didn't matter. Bates was on Kenmore, hitting him with the stocky solidity for which he'd been named safety.

The ball slipped again. Bounced…

He skidded in the mud to reach the ball, nearly joining the ranks of other players injured during this game. A glance around the field showed no running options; the Rait players were coming for him and the clock was trickling time - mere seconds.

John took two steps and a calculated risk. He snapped the pigskin into the air - a wing and a prayer.

_Hail Mary, full of grace..._

It wasn't Mary who caught the ball at the ten-yard line.

It wasn't Mary who dodged the Rait defenseman coming for her and ran the ball into the end zone.

It wasn't Mary who got the almighty cheer from the stands as the final horn went off, rocking the fields and the cool night air - an exultant roar that broke through John's game-focused shell like a tsunami would break through the roof of a beachside resort and swept him up in a rush of relief and adrenaline.

Halfway down the field, John whooped in triumph, punching his fist into the air before he ran for his team-mate.

_Yes_!

Helmets clashed as he reached her amidst a jubilant crowd of players, grabbed her around the shoulders in an exultant swing. "What a catch!"

"What a throw!" She told him, laughing behind the grill of her helmet in unusual joyousness. "Well done, John!"

John pulled off his helmet with one hand and rapped on hers with the other. "Take that off! We won the game!"

With another roll of her eyes, she took the helmet off and flung her arms around him. "We won the game." The initial glee was gone, but he could still hear the pleasure in her voice as the other players came up to them. Then there was hugging and backslapping from their team-mates, and the usual game-end handshakes with the other team and thanking the umpires.

And Kenmore's flat glare as he shook hands with John made everything worth it, even if it suggested that John had just been elevated from 'minor annoyance' to 'possible threat'. Right now, John didn't give a shit. They'd beaten St. Rait's and he felt good.

John slung a casual arm around Teyla's shoulders as they walked off the field - much the same way he would have flung an arm around any of the other guys' shoulders. Except that this would annoy the heck out of Kenmore - and John did it for that and that alone.

"Damn, we're good," he said, glancing down at her as she turned her helmet over in her hands.

"We are," she agreed, sounding about as smug as he felt.

"So," John leaned over to murmur in her ear as the Shermer supporters poured out of the stands to swamp them in jubilant celebration, "are you ready to party?"

--

John was ready to party.

He was ready to take a good-looking girl out to dinner with a bunch of their friends, and dance like he had the right to dance after being part and parcel of the Homecoming team.

He _wasn't_ ready for the sea of faces that looked expectantly at him as he walked into Sharon Athos' living room to wait for Teyla to emerge from her room.

Six adults regarded him with gazes that ranged from coolly studying to appreciatively amused. John counted four kids staring at him with eyes as round as saucers. They were spread out all across the room, sitting in armchairs and on the arms of armchairs and sofas - one woman was cross-legged on the floor keeping the babies entertained - and they were all watching him.

_Just smile and wave, boys. Just smile and wave._ "Uh, hi."

In vain, John looked for Sharon, who'd vanished down the hallway with the reassurance that she'd see what was taking Teyla so long. No rescue from that quarter.

It looked like he was on his own.

"You must be John," said a lanky man who looked something like a misplaced hippie. "Halling Athos. I'm Teyla's brother."

"Foster-brother," corrected a woman whose skin was ebony-dark and whose eyes regarded John with glittering amusement - probably at his discomfort. "We're all Sharon's foster kids, actually," she said. "Or partners."

Great. A family turnout to vet the date. Just what John needed. Not.

"Pleased to meet you," he said, going for polite. "Uh, John Sheppard. As you probably already know."

"Yeah," said a big bald man, eyeing him with barely-disguised amusement. "The jock boy."

John tensed. The man looked like a biker. Or a pirate. One called Blackbeard. He was built big, and the goatee and moustache he sported were jet black, the same colour as his eyebrows over dark, shrewd eyes.

"Brian..." murmured another woman in warning, sitting in a rocking chair that looked antique. Her round face was cheerful and interested as she turned to John. "You're the captain of Teyla's football team? The one who threw the Hail Mary at the horn last night?"

"Tricia and I were at the game," said the ebony-skinned woman. "I'm Jackie, by the way. We were impressed."

"Yeah, well, Teyla's one of our best players," John said, relieved to have a topic of conversation he could engage in. "I'm proud to have her on side."

"It must have been quite a risky venture - including a girl on a high school football team," said Halling with a mildness that John immediately distrusted. "There aren't many guys who'd condone her playing."

John shrugged. "She was good enough, that's all that counted." And right now, he was immensely thankful that he hadn't given in to the little voice echoing Bates' opinion that a junior girl had no place on a varsity football team. And he _had_ thought that for a moment, before he realised that if she was good enough, then she was good enough.

"She never did let anything stand in her way when she wanted it," chuckled Tricia. "Remember Ryan Stuart?"

"Oh, you've teased her about that more than enough now, Tricia," scolded one of the women playing with a toddler on the rug. "She's seventeen and far past that."

"Young Ryan Stuart wouldn't mind Teyla giving him a black eye now if it meant she kissed it better later," smirked Brian.

"Brian!"

"Chased him down and socked him in the eye for making one of her friends cry," Tricia told John with what he thought was slightly obscene cheerfulness. "Caught him, took him down, and punched him, tough as a steel bar."

"She's always had a mind and will of her own," said Halling mildly. Although he wasn't as horribly cheerful about it as Tricia, John was pretty sure the man - in his mid-twenties, perhaps - was finding this whole situation just a little amusing behind the serious expression.

Time to let them know that he was well aware of what Teyla was capable of. "And a temper when she's angry," he said. When they looked at him, he shrugged. "She clocked a guy who sneered once too often at the tryouts," he explained. "Nice right hook."

"I taught her that." Brian smirked at John.

"She learned pretty fast," murmured Jackie. "Especially the bits about the elbow in the belly, the knee in the groin, and the stiletto on the instep."

Okay. John figured he'd just been given the 'touch her and what she doesn't smear across the ground won't fit in a jelly jar' speech.

Halling coughed gently. "I think that is as far as this conversation should go," he said gently.

"I agree," Teyla said padding around John in stocking feet. "Hey, John."

"Hey." He managed that much as he took her dress in. It was something soft and clingy, and, boy, was it clinging to her! Then he remembered that he was in the room with not only her, but also a whole platoon of her relatives. "You look...nice."

"Four years of high school and all he's coming up with is 'nice'? Girl, you should dump him and find someone who knows how to spin a compliment!"

John felt the flush crawl across the back of his neck.

"That's enough, Tricia," Sharon said from the door, in a tone of voice that was both gentle and firm. "I think John has put up with enough of this for the evening."

There were assorted innocent looks and one or two grins.

"I think _I_ have put up with enough of this for the evening," Teyla said.

John turned to Teyla, who was glaring at her siblings. "You know, I think the dress code for Homecoming requires shoes." He pointed at her stocking feet.

The glance she levelled him could have carved stone. "If you wait a moment, I will find them and then we can go."

John winced. "Okay. This is me waiting a moment." He turned to the room and flashed them a quick smile. "We're due for dinner at six."

"Where?"

"The Melting Pot. With friends."

"Ooh, classy," Tricia murmured. "I take back my injunction for Teyla to dump you."

"Tricia," chided Sharon. She turned to John. "Teyla thinks you'll be back by one o'clock."

As curfews went, it wasn't bad. John was a latchkey kid, but he was a guy and his parents didn't really care much either way.

"When I was living in this household, my curfew was midnight!"

"This is Homecoming, Jackie. They're entitled to dance the night away."

"As long as it's the vertical kind and not the horizontal kind," Brian said pointedly, fixing John with an evil smile.

"If it was horizontal, I would never tell you, Brian," said Teyla as she re-entered the room carrying a pair of stilettos that looked about a mile high. "So you would never know anyway. I have my shoes." She looked at John. "We should leave before they go on about this any longer." She glared around at her foster-brothers and foster-sisters, then grabbed John's hand and dragged him out of the room.

"Don't forget to use a condom!" Jackie yelled after them.

Laughter echoed out of the room after them and John felt the flush crawl along his ears. The condom in his wallet was burning a hole in leather and trouser material as they got out and into the house's front corridor. Okay, so he didn't _really_ think he'd get lucky with Teyla. But it was good to be prepared.

Teyla scowled as she dropped John's hand and balanced against the doorframe to slip her shoes on. "They would keep us there all night, poking fun," she grumbled.

"And you did not when they went out?" Sharon asked.

"That was different," she protested. "I was younger than they were and less experienced at such things."

Her foster mother twinkled, amused at Teyla's defence. "Which did not stop you from being a pest, my dear."

"They deserved it."

"And now this is payback."

"Nobody expects the Athos Inquisition," John offered.

Sharon chuckled as she opened the door. "Enjoy yourself, my dears."

Teyla grabbed her purse from the side table, kissed Sharon on the cheek, and slipped out after John, closing the door firmly behind her and exhaling loudly when it was shut. "I am sorry about that."

She seemed embarrassed. John figured that now they were out, he could smile about it. After all, he wasn't going to be seeing them again. "It was...interesting."

"It is Halling's fault. He found out about Homecoming and decided that this weekend should be a family dinner."

Yeah, John figured that. Big brother keeping an eye on Teyla's dates.

"Sneaky." John paused at the car. "You look...gorgeous," he said, honestly, figuring that he owed her the compliment. "Really stunning. It's a bit embarrassing to say in front of your family, though."

Teyla laughed. "Thank you, John." She slid one arm over his shoulder, pulling him into a quick hug that pressed all kinds of interesting curves against him. Definitely no unnecessary padding on Teyla Emmagen. "You look good."

And good was how John felt when he climbed into the driver's seat.

"Ready for Homecoming?"

Her smile was limpid, a sparkling imp in her eyes. "Better to ask if Homecoming is ready for us!"

John started up the car. "Only one way to find out!"

--

He'd loosened his sleeves, tucked his bow tie in his pocket and left his jacket at the table for the salsa.

The last time John had danced with Teyla - at Founder's Dance - she'd been seeing Lorne and he'd been with Chaya. The invitation had been more challenge and show-off than dance, and John had enjoyed himself _and_ the cool looks he got from Mark Lorne and his crowd.

This time around, John was still enjoying himself, but the dance felt a little more edgy and he felt a little more charged when the music finished with a flourish.

Maybe it was her dress - Teyla cleaned up pretty. Maybe it was the way she let John dance a little closer, allowed him a little more leeway than she usually did. Maybe it was just the fact that Mark Lorne was watching them with a narrow-eyed expression, while Chaya and her new boyfriend were studiously ignoring them, although more than a few of that crowd were watching the dance.

Chaya had been more than a little possessive after the last dance during Founder's, too. John had liked it then.

He rather liked it now.

_Don't get mad; get even._

So what if he showed off a little more than usual?

"You have not been practising," Teyla murmured as the audience whooped and applauded them and the handful of other student dancers who'd dared the floor during that number.

John snorted. "When have I had time?" He slid his arms around her waist as the next song came on - a slow dance - and the floor began filling up with students again. She didn't protest or pull away, by which he guessed she was okay with staying on the floor. "But we did pretty well, didn't we?"

Her mouth twitched as she rested her hands on his upper arms and moved with him in time to the music. "Yes. We did," she agreed with a complacent grin up at him.

John grinned back, ignoring the lazy curl of his stomach doing loops.

He hadn't expected much more agreement from her. Teyla liked a challenge, but it was usually for the sake of being challenged. John preferred boasting rights. Or even just knowing rights - the right to _know_ that you were better than someone else, even if you didn't rub it in.

And between their teamwork at last night's game and their partnership at tonight's dance, John Sheppard and Teyla Emmagen were hot property - and John knew it.

John was _enjoying_ it.

Even during the Founders' Dance, he'd known they looked hot together. The looks they'd been getting tonight only confirmed that. There weren't too many guys who hadn't hated John's guts the instant he and Teyla had walked into the room. And John was pretty sure at least a few of the girls were bitching about Teyla behind her back because she was at Homecoming with him.

A glance around the room showed most of their gang still over at the table. Laura, Rodney, and Ronon were arguing again, while Liz and Carson rolled their eyes and made occasional comments about the argument or the dancers.

Dinner had been great. The food tasted fine, and the company of the gang made things easy. John had slipped back into hanging out with Rodney, Liz, Carson, and Teyla like he'd never left. And it was good, even with the additions of Ronon and Laura to the mix.

He and Teyla had shared a good-natured, easy companionship, including Rodney in their banter while the other couples in the gang flirted like they'd never dated before.

It was funny to watch.

Teyla lifted one hand to wave at Carson when he turned towards the dance floor. "They should come over."

John glanced their way. It didn't look like the three debaters were going to let up anytime soon. Laura and Rodney were ferocious when they were going on about something, and Ronon could be just as pig-headed and argumentative as those two, and much less moveable about it. "Maybe they don't want to. Not everyone can move like us."

One eyebrow arched. "Modesty is clearly not one of your virtues."

"Hey, when you're good, you're good."

"And you are good?"

"No." John leaned in close, serious and intense and testing her boundaries. "I'm _damn_ good."

To her credit, she didn't pull back although, after a moment, her smile dimpled one cheek. "Remind me who caught your throw?"

Sharp girl. "That's the _other_ reason I'm good," he told her blithely.

"Because _I_ caught the ball and scored the winning touchdown?"

"Because _I_ asked _you_ to Homecoming."

Laughter hovered around her mouth, tilting the corners up. "And I receive no credit for accepting?"

John pretended to consider it. "Okay," he said. "I'll share the credit with you."

"So we can be damn good together?"

Judging from her sudden flush, she hadn't meant it quite the way it sounded, but John gave her points for holding his gaze, almost challengingly. He managed a brief smile amidst the gentle curl of his stomach tying in knots, before he shut it down.

"You know," he said with a smile that was carefully light, "we already are."

--

John thought about it as they drove back to her house after the dance. Seriously thought about it.

Teyla hummed harmony to the songs playing on the radio. In spite of being musically challenged, John found himself humming along as well, and caught her occasional sideways smile at his attempts to keep the tune.

Like she'd said - albeit unintentionally - they were good together. Easy friends.

She was incredibly good at playing football and kicking ass, she could hold a conversation with an edge of teasing or in dead seriousness, and she didn't feel the need to jabber on and on when John was feeling quiet; plus, she was hot stuff when she was dressed up and cool as a river in August when she wasn't. And they could salsa the balls off any other couple at Shermer, except maybe Mr. T and the Domestic Tech teacher who had at least fifteen, maybe twenty years on them.

Why not date?

Maybe because they were friends _and_ team-mates, and good as both? Why wreck a good thing?

Plus, John didn't want to go out with _anyone_ right now. Flirt, yes. Casual date, sure. Steady date? No. Definitely no.

"Tired?"

He glanced over at her in the passenger seat. "No. Why?"

"You stopped talking." She didn't quite smile, but he got the impression she was amused all the same. It was amazing what she could do with nothing more than a twitch of the lips.

John shot her a glare. "I'm not Rodney, you know." She arched a brow at him, and he rolled his eyes and figured it was time for someone else to take some heat. "He was going to ask you to Homecoming."

"Rodney?" Teyla turned to look at him, and he grinned at her wide-eyed astonishment. "That is...quite a compliment."

John stopped at the set of lights, took his eyes off the road for a few more seconds, and looked at her in disbelief. "A compliment?"

"His usual preference is for blondes," Teyla said, apparently in earnest. "Or the very smart girls."

As if John didn't already know that! "So?"

Teyla sighed. "In case you have not noticed, John, I am neither blonde, nor smart."

"You're no dummy," he frowned as the lights went green and he eased the car through the intersection, passing the group of shops at the lights. "And I'd have liked to see one of the 'geek' girls catch that throw yesterday night!"

"Perhaps," she said, "but I fit neither of Rodney's usual preferences." Teyla turned her head to look out the passenger window as they turned into her street, but John could hear the smile in her voice. "So it is a compliment of sorts that he would even consider me as a partner for Homecoming."

She had this all turned about and John didn't get it. "You don't figure it might be the other way around? That you'd have been doing him a favour to go to Homecoming with him?"

Teyla looked bewildered. "Relationships are not about doing favours for someone else." She eyed him. "At least, mine are not."

"Okay," John conceded. "Bad wording."

"Yes."

"After last week's game, you could have had your pick of guys at Shermer."

She didn't answer. Not immediately. But when she did, there was an odd note to her voice. "Perhaps I do not want any of the guys at Shermer?"

John frowned briefly, stung by her words. It wasn't an off-hand or teasing comment, not the way she'd said it. And he was one of the guys at Shermer, too. Which made tonight...what?

_A pretty good night,_ he told himself. _And you don't want to go out with her - or anyone - right now. Remember?_

Right. His pride was still injured after Chaya. But what was so bad about the guys at Shermer?

As he drove up her driveway, John decided he wasn't going to think about it. He wasn't going to ask about it. He wasn't going to question it. It was none of his business and it didn't matter to him at all.

Even if he felt a bit stung at her dismissal.

"Well," he said, forcing himself to be off-hand as he turned off the car, "the captain of the football team took you to Homecoming. You can't do much better than that!"

It got the response he wanted - a slow turning-up of the corners of her mouth. He grinned back at her and hopped out. "Come on, I'll walk you to the house."

Teyla swung her legs out, closing the door behind her. The fingers she placed in his hand were cool, their touch firm and brisk. "You do not have to, you know."

"I know," he said. "But after your family terrorised me..."

Even in the garden lights, her amusement was plain. "So I should not invite you in for milk and cookies, then?" At his raised brow, she tilted her nose in the air and sniffed once. "Sharon has been baking. Doubtless for the children."

Now that he took a sniff, John could smell the chocolate and peanut butter scents in the air. In spite of the huge dinner they'd had several hours earlier, it made his stomach rumble in anticipation. Teyla laughed again.

"I'll take a raincheck on that," he said. "But you won't get out of it the next time I have to drop you home after practise."

"If you say so." Teyla paused. Looked at him as though she was trying to decide what to do with him. "Thank you for tonight," she said at last. "I enjoyed myself."

"You're welcome," he replied. Then John leaned down for a kiss, figuring that if he didn't try something risky during Homecoming, he'd never get another chance.

Her finger on his lip was gentle, although the expression on her face warned him against trying that again. "I am not _that_ thankful," Teyla said, although her smile took some of the sting out of her words. Then she rose up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek, light as a whisper.

John felt the shiver of desire down his spine. Thought about turning his head and kissing her - _really_ kissing her in a serious, tonsil-hockey kind of way. Quelled it. She'd already nixed it and he didn't much feel like pushing himself on a girl who didn't want him.

Teyla was already pulling back, casual and easy, unaware of John's inner turmoil.

"Drive carefully."

"Yeah. You go inside first," John said, keeping his voice even.

"Polite," she observed, pushing open the front door.

"You'd kick my ass if I wasn't."

She grinned. "Good night, John."

"'Night, Teyla."

As he walked back to his car, John ignored the wound-up sensation in his belly that grumbled at him for letting her put him off like that. She wasn't interested and - really - neither was he. It was the right thing to do.

They were friends. That was good enough for him.

--

So, yeah, all in all, John had a good senior Homecoming.

- **TBC** -

**NOTES**: We've reached the end of Act I - all the pieces are in place! Thank you so much to those who've been reading and leaving feedback - it's been much-loved.


	6. storm clouds gathering

**NOTES: **Dear readers, please note that this is a WIP and is likely to remain so. I have the rest of the story in my head, but it's not complete by a long shot (at least another 10-15K words) and it seems unlikely that it will ever be finished.

Thanks to all the people who've commented, but especially Berrica, who managed to catch me in a weak moment, reminding me that I haven't posted what remains of this story on .

**Chapter 6 Storm Clouds Gathering**

There was one more regular season game the following Friday, and Shermer coasted to a fifteen-point victory against their opponents. John scored one touchdown, and opened up a space for Sam Maynard to plough through for another, while other players on the team similarly distinguished themselves.

Practise began getting hairy - the state playoffs began the next weekend. There was tension and more than a little stress going around the players, and it came up in small ways - grumbling, short tempers, restlessness escalating to fights.

John wasn't quite sure what he'd expected from the team after Homecoming, but it wasn't this kind of behaviour. He and the coach worked at keeping the peace, although one fight nearly got out of hand during weight training when Evanham threw a punch at Lichfield and more than a few of the guys started up, ready for a fight.

Oddly enough, the calming factor was Teyla manhandling Lichfield back while John got between Teyla and Evanham. Lichfield wouldn't throw a punch at Teyla, but John wasn't so sure about Evanham.

It left him feeling restless and irritable.

Later, on her way out of training, Teyla patted John's arm as she went out. "It will work out, John."

"Halloween might help," Ford commented that Thursday afternoon after training. They had the first of the state games that Friday, so Saturday night was free for a change. "A chance to put on masks, play silly, TP the coach's house..." Dark eyes twinkled at John as he tilted his head. "You doing anything Saturday night?"

John shrugged. "Party at Liz's," he said.

"Geek side of the force?"

"Careful," John warned, "or you'll start to sound like one yourself."

Ford's grin was quick and mischievous. "Can't have that. Might have to beat myself up."

Which reminded John... "Yeah, about that. Did you really threaten to beat Zelenka up other day?" John had heard the rumour from Rodney on Tuesday.

"Oh, man." Ford groaned. "Look, it's not as bad as it sounds. I asked him a simple question about the Physics class and he came out with all this stuff that I didn't need to know and don't want to. Then, when I asked him to speak plain English, he started jabbering at me in that Euro language of his. So I asked him if I was going to have to beat the answer out of him." Ford scowled at the inside of his locker and pulled out his tote. "It was a joke. But I think he was being geeky just to annoy me, you know?"

Yeah, John knew. And he'd been pretty sure that Ford wasn't the beat 'em up kind of guy. But Rodney had been outraged and given John an earful and a half about typical jocks who thought they could solve everything with their fists. John left the McKay household with only half his homework done, and a headache.

And things hadn't been any better when he got home.

"They do that," John said by way of consolation. He slammed his locker shut and spun the combination.

"McKay?"

"Yeah. A yes/no question turns into an essay answer." John shrugged. After all these years, he was used to Rodney. Sure, it was annoying at times but he dealt.

"Well, it's your ears being chewed off, not mine." Ford shut his locker. "You going to McKay's tonight?"

"Nah, tonight is Liz's house. Dinner included." Thank God for the Weirs.

The younger guy gave him a hard look. "How's Dex feel about that?"

John shrugged. "He's cool with it." Not that they'd ever spoken about it, of course. But Ronon had never said anything, so John supposed he was cool about John's friendship with Liz.

"And Mara?"

It was John's turn to give Ford a hard look. "What's Mara got to do with it?"

Ford shrugged. "Sometimes girls take your friendships with other girls funny."

John couldn't deny that, but he hauled his backpack on and shrugged. "She'll just have to deal with it."

He thought about it on the way to Liz's. Chaya hadn't been too enthusiastic about either Liz or Teyla. And Liz hadn't been happy about Chaya either. John had never worked out if that was because Liz had been crushing on him, or just because Chaya didn't like him hanging out with Liz.

Teyla didn't seem to care one way or the other. But that was Teyla. She could be hard to read if she didn't want you to know what she was thinking about something.

As he hauled his bag out of his car at Liz's, John reflected that Teyla had been playing it very cool after Homecoming. Friendly, but not overly so, and definitely not anything like the way Mara was making friendly towards him.

Friendly was more than he was getting from Liz that night.

She was quiet through dinner, almost sulky. John made most of the conversation, and her parents gave most of the answers.

"So," he said as they pulled out their books and spread them across the table. "What's eating you?"

Liz sniffed, her eyes firmly fixed on the paper of a page she wasn't seeing. "Nothing."

"If it was nothing, you wouldn't be in such a bad mood." John figured he might as well have it out with her. Maybe if she had her temper tantrum, then she'd be in a better mood afterwards and they might actually get some of their Civics homework done.

"I'm not in a bad mood!" Liz pulled over a textbook and glared at it as though it was responsible for all her woes and troubles. John nearly pointed out the contradiction between her actions and her words, but decided not to. He didn't fancy having Liz angry with him, instead of just angry.

Whatever. Hopefully Ronon's call at nine would put her in a better frame of mind. Exactly when the institution had begun, John didn't know. He didn't have any idea what was said during those conversations, because Liz always went out of the room or glared if he got too close. But she always came back in a better mood afterwards.

They worked through homework fairly fast - Liz was good at Civics, which was why John studied with her for this subject - and John finished the essay well ahead of the time he'd imagined he'd have to spend on it and moved back to Physics, which he found easier than all this diplomatic and political stuff.

He got through the problems assigned to him, read up on the notes, and even managed to sketch out a few ideas for a project later on in the year. He'd have to run it past Rodney, of course, but there was plenty of time for the other boy to tear his ideas into pieces. Rodney was good at that kind of thing.

Liz was doing research on her Dad's laptop for another subject; every now and then she'd type in a search string, then click around a bit.

John began getting suspicious around the time she began typing more than she was clicking.

Megan came in with ginger beer and cookies at a quarter past nine, and glanced over her daughter's shoulder. The steady tap of keys suddenly stopped and John saw the quick movement of Liz's left hand as she swapped the window she was looking at.

"Elizabeth."

"Mom."

"Your father let you use the laptop for research purposes," Megan said. "Not to chat to Teyla all night."

Liz flushed, giving John an apologetic glance. He nonchalantly studied the pattern of coconut shavings on his cookie. "I'd only just started talking to her, mom."

Megan didn't believe it. "Well, you can say goodnight to Teyla and finish up."

"Say hi from me," John piped up, and shrugged at the disgusted face he got from Liz and the quelling look he got from her mom.

Liz typed in something, and then clicked a few times on the computer. "Fine," she glared at her mom. "Are you happy now?"

"No," Megan's hand caressed Liz's hair, brushing over the curls with maternal affection. "But at least I can go back to pretending you're going to get your homework done before midnight."

John grinned, then cleared his expression when Liz glared at him.

Okay. He was going to stay out of this one.

Around ten-thirty, Liz began yawning - rather pointedly, John thought - and he took the hint. He'd gotten through most of his homework and it wasn't as though he could put off going home any longer.

"You'll be at the game tomorrow night?" He asked as he packed his books away.

She shrugged, not moving from her seat. "Probably."

"You sure you're okay?"

Liz rolled her eyes. "I'm fine. Go home, John. Stop procrastinating."

Dismissed, and a little peeved at the procrastination taunt - Liz's home life was great, _she'd_ never dreaded going home - John said goodbye to the Weirs, gritted his teeth, and headed down the street to his own house.

He was not looking forward to this.

John was in a sufficiently bad mood the next day to ignore most of the looks being thrown his way when he stalked down the corridors in the morning.

Classes were even more of a bore than usual, and Ronon was suspiciously absent from the midmorning break. John made do with Rodney, who was chattering fit to compete for the Guinness Book Of Records' record for the World's Fastest Talker and had a headache by the end of the break.

And he was getting looks from people.

Ben Maroney glared at him in Trig, barely paying attention to Mr. Felger. Kate Heightmeyer's look at him was disappointed when she passed him in the corridor, although he didn't have time to ask what was up. And he met Tammy Gilmore's smirking sashay with the same stony face that he turned towards Mitchell Slade and Dexter Halloran when they pushed past him on the way to Physics talking about the boat party Jeff Mann had held last weekend on the lake with his 'friends'.

He glimpsed Mara from some distance away, but she went into one of the classrooms without waiting for him, so he supposed she hadn't seen him.

In fact, the only person he saw that he felt like smiling at that morning was Teyla, who tilted an eyebrow at his set face and crossed her eyes at him in wry humour before vanishing into one of the Math classrooms.

By the time the lunchtime football meet rolled around, John was restless and in a mood to fight something.

He only half-listened to Coach's instructions for that night's game. Having made the top of their league, Shermer were playing Genii High tonight. After this, they had to win every game or be knocked out of the competition. And the games would get tougher and the pressure higher with every week that passed.

"We can do this," Caldwell said, his voice calm and his expression focused on the players before him. "You're a good team - I'm proud of what you've done this season. We can keep going, but to do that, we need everyone putting in a hundred ten percent. No slackers."

It was only a short meet. Coach believed that too much game wasn't good for the players and dismissed them by the half-lunch bell.

John turned on his heel, prepared to walk back to the senior lawn area, then realised that without Ronon around, he'd either be hanging on the edge of Jeff Mann's group or trying to cosy up to people he didn't really want to be bothered with right now.

Then he caught sight of Teyla, cutting across the main quadrangle on her way to the gym, and jogged after her. "Teyla!" She turned, and so did various heads around the yards. John ignored them, falling into step next to her. "Headed to the self-defence group?"

"Yes." She glanced at him, dark eyes thoughtful. "You are feeling...okay?"

He frowned. Teyla could be a little more formal at times, but that was a question she rarely asked. "I'm fine," he said, more shortly than he intended. "Had a fight with my dad last night after I got home from Liz's, but I'm fine."

Teyla's nod was brisk. "Your father will not be coming to the game tonight?"

John shrugged. "It's a free world. He can if he wants." Not that Patrick Sheppard would. Football was a frivolous enterprise to the old man, whether played at high school level or professionally. "Is Sharon coming?"

"I believe she intends to come. Halling is in town tonight, and he has Jinto for the weekend. They will likely come and watch the game."

"Great," John muttered as they swung in the door of the gym. Teyla's reproving glance had him throwing his hands up. "I didn't mean that your family-" He huffed. "Never mind. I can't seem to win today."

She had the sense to realise he wasn't poking fun, and the tact to change the topic. "You are coming to the lunchtime self-defence group?"

"I know a bit of jujitsu," John defended, not liking her tone. "Try me."

Her left eyebrow rose even further. "You want me to fight you?"

"What's wrong with that?" John was pretty sure he could hold his own against Teyla. Ronon would be another matter, but he wasn't going to go hand-to-hand against Ronon. No-one sane would. "Don't you think you can beat me?"

It was fun to watch her eyes narrow, and even more fun to watch her stalk across the room, prissy as an offended cat.

Mr. T regarded him with some surprise as he pulled off his jacket and shoes, and Mr. O'Neill arched both brows. "Are we aiming to lose tonight's game, Sheppard?"

"Sir?"

"Anyone going up against Ms. Emmagen is asking to come out of it black and blue. And you're the star quarterback and all that."

John resented that everyone seemed to think he couldn't take Teyla on. She was a good few inches smaller than him, at least fifteen pounds lighter, and while John would never be wrestler material, he wasn't small stuff.

There were even wagers going on around the room as he and Teyla faced each other across the mats. She'd pulled off her jacket to reveal a plain brown tank top over long, loose trousers.

"You know," he noted, "I don't know why everyone's so eager to see me lose."

Teyla smiled slightly as she took up a ready stance against him. "I will go easy on you if you wish, John."

"Don't bother," John retorted, standing with his feet planted in the middle of the floor. "Give it to me hard."

If her eyes widened fractionally at his loaded statement, she was more than ready for him when he came at her, jabbing lightly at her jaw, testing her reflexes and her readiness. She blocked him twice, then nearly caught him out with an unexpected jab to the belly. He ducked away.

It wasn't actually that difficult to match her, and John found himself grinning in anticipation of the blows and hits. There were murmurs beyond the mats, but he ignored them, and Teyla didn't seem to be listening anyway.

On the football field, she was a quiet, calm presence, and a cool head. In a team comprised of a bunch of teenage boys, that was generally a good thing. Here, she had an edge, as though the camaraderie that defined and built a team was stripped from her, honing her, focusing her.

Her eyes flickered from his face to his chest, carefully expressionless, but John sensed she wasn't _looking_ at him as himself - he was just an opponent to be overcome.

John found it both disconcerting and distracting.

This wasn't a Teyla Emmagen he was familiar with.

A hard cut from her right caught him off balance, and she neatly moved in, hooking a foot around his ankle as her fingers caught his wrist and held him from going completely off balance. Rather than letting him fall to the ground, she lowered him down, saving his butt if not his dignity.

Sound rose around him, emerging like the sudden realisation of noise at the end of a game. As John panted with sudden exhaustion, he reflected that this could be seen as a smaller version of a football game - opponent, spectators, field, moves.

And he'd just lost.

Teyla peered down at him, her eyes focusing on his face with an expression that was almost surprised. "I did not hurt you?"

"Just my pride," John admitted, accepting her hand up. "You're good." She knew it already, but it wouldn't hurt to say it again.

"Thank you." Her smile deepened in pleasure, before someone called her name and she turned away.

John dusted himself off, noting the scrutiny of Mr. O'Neill over by Mr. T's hulking, black form. "So," he said, addressing the Vice-Principal directly, "Did I do okay?"

"For a rank beginner," O'Neill said, "Not bad. She went easy on you, you know."

John didn't quite sigh, but he wasn't completely surprised. Considering she could go up against Ronon and last for at least five minutes, she had to be much better at this than John. Still, in spite of knowing she'd gone easy on him, John felt satisfied with his attempt. It was like he'd purged a bit of restless energy and was ready to go for the game tonight.

But he stuck it out and watched the various people sparring against each other, quietly measuring which ones he could beat and which ones might beat him.

"John Sheppard." Mr. T paused by him towards the end of lunch. "Have you considered honing your self-defence skills in the fight club?"

"Considered, yeah," John said. "But I don't have time right now."

Mr. T nodded. The man moved with immense grace for a guy who embodied the phrase, 'built like a brick shithouse.' "Perhaps you will consider it when the football season concludes?"

John shrugged. "I'll think about it." It wasn't a bad idea, but he wasn't so sure he wanted to get involved in the fight club - although it would be one more thing on his school curriculum list.

"Ms. Emmagen is one of our best, and I understand you are friends with Mr. Dex." It wasn't quite a question. "You have potential."

"Uh, thanks." _I think_. John hauled on his bag as the bell went, grateful for the excuse to head out. "Gotta get to class. Afternoon, Mr. T."

He waved at Teyla on the way out, and she smiled briefly at him before returning her attention to the guy she was talking to.

Fine. He'd see her later at the game, anyway.

John was almost at his class when Rodney accosted him. "Sheppard, need to talk to you." With a surprisingly firm grip, the younger guy grabbed John's arm and hauled him over to the side out of the main traffic in the halls and next to a water fountain. "Go on and shoo," he told the sophomore who was wiping her mouth after a drink. "Get to your class. We're here."

"Rodney."

"Okay, there's no nice way to break this to you - assuming you need it broken to you, because if it's true then you already know. But if it's not, then I don't want to shock you or anything, and it's entirely possible that you already know about this."

"Rodney!"

Rodney took a deep breath. "Are you going out with Liz?"

John stared at Rodney. "Where'd you hear that?"

"It's making the rounds. Look, I just want to say that if it's true...well, I'm happy for you. Both of you." Rodney wasn't the best at dissembling, and John had the feeling there was a flip side to the declaration.

"And if it's not?"

"Then I'm relieved I won't have to scrape what's left of you off the sidewalk when Ronon finds out," said Rodney promptly. His backpack began to slip from his shoulder and he twitched it back on. "Should I be happy or relieved?"

"Does it matter?" John asked pointedly. "Either way, _you're_ okay!"

"From the dulcet notes of your voice, I'm guessing you're not dating her." Rodney sagged. "Oh good. Well, not 'good' in the sense that if Ronon finds out about this rumour then you're gonna be in big trouble, and not 'good' in the sense that _I_ have any designs on her, and certainly _not _'good' if Liz finds out about it because then your trouble quotient is only going to be marginally less than when Ronon finds out..."

Trouble quotient? Where the hell did Rodney get these terms?

At least it explained the looks he'd been receiving all day. No wonder Ben Maroney was fuming - he'd been crushing on Liz for years now. _Shit_. John ran his hands through his hair in exasperation. "I don't have time for this. I have a game to play this afternoon."

"Yeah, well, you're gonna hear about it in the locker room. Probably. I don't know how much jocks gossip-"

"Enough."

"Well, if you don't hear it from the jocks, you'll hear it from the cheerleaders. Because I don't imagine Mara would be all that happy to hear you're dating Liz. Which you aren't, but she doesn't know that." Rodney winced and pressed one hand to his stomach. "Okay. I just had to tell you. My work here is done. And now I feel sick. Ugh. Do you think there might have been lemon in the stroganoff at lunch? I'm feeling queasy."

Without waiting for an answer, the other guy stalked off, his information passed on, his good deed done for the day. John shook his head. If there'd been any lemon in Rodney's lunch, Rodney wouldn't just be feeling queasy; he'd be struggling for breath.

Still, he almost managed a smile at the other guy's stomp down the corridor. He appreciated the heads-up, even from Rodney, who'd meant it well, even if he wasn't the most socially tactful of people.

The smile faded.

Okay, so it wasn't a _new_ rumour. John had faced the same rumour at least once a semester for the last three years. But this was the first time it had made the rounds while Liz was dating Ronon.

Unlike Liz's last boyfriend, Simon Wallace, Ronon was more than capable of killing John without waiting for a trial by jury.

Okay, so John's concern wasn't totally self-centred. He liked Ronon. The other guy was cool company and good for Liz. And he remembered how it had felt to discover Chaya had dumped him for another guy. He didn't imagine Ronon would be feeling all that great if he heard the rumour.

Plus, it didn't make John look very good - stealing another guy's girlfriend.

And, frankly, he was just plain angry that anyone would even _think_ he would do anything like that to two friends.

"Sheppard?"

_Fuck._ "Mr. Landry."

"Shouldn't you be in class?" The teacher arched his brows at John. "Would you like a tardy note?"

"Uhh... no, sir. Just having a quick drink."

Landry looked at the water fountain, sitting shiny and damp in the wall, and clearly didn't believe John. "Well, finish your quick drink and get to your class."

John ran for class. He'd deal with the rumours later.

The Friday afternoon bell rang, occasioning a complete stampede as students hurried to get out of school. John didn't move quite as fast as the rest of the herd since he only had to get out to the bus that was waiting to take him and the other players to the field for the first of the district games.

But Liz was waiting for him at the first intersection.

It was, it seemed, John's day for being collared by his friends.

"What is it?" He demanded of Liz as she hauled him by his bag strap over to an empty classroom after the last bell. "I've got a bus to catch."

"You can miss your bus for all I care," she flared, slamming the door behind her. "What are you doing, John?"

"What? What am _I_ doing?"

"We are _not_ dating! I don't care how hurt you are that Chaya dumped you - that does not give you the right to use me as a convenient extra in your social life!"

John gaped at her. "What? Wait, if this is about that rumour-"

"Of _course_ it's about that rumour," she snapped, glaring daggers at him. "If you think that there's any chance I still have a crush on your arrogant, self-absorbed, egotistical-"

He couldn't help the grin. Okay, so he'd always suspected. But it was nice to _know_.

Liz froze and a scowl darkened her features. "Don't you _dare _make an issue of it, John."

And he wasn't even going to get to enjoy it. "I didn't say anything."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Look. Ronon and I had a fight the other day. I'm not in a good mood about that - and even less happy to discover that apparently I'm supposed to swoon in your arms like a helpless little heroine."

"You don't swoon," John said, thinking of all the times when they were kids that he and Rodney had tried to persuade Liz to let them 'rescue' her, only to be told that it was demeaning and stupid, and that they were misogynists, and their games were infantile...

"No," she agreed. "I don't. And I don't appreciate you starting up that rumour again-"

"Whoa. Wait. Hang on a minute! You think _I_ started it? You think I had _anything_ to do with this?" _Now_ John was angry. Really angry. "_I_ found out about it today at lunchtime when Rodney told me about it."

"Well, _I_ didn't start it, and you were the logical one-"

"Logical? Hello! Why would I spread such a rumour around? Really? Christ, _I'm_ not the one being arrogant and egotistical about this," John retorted back, his voice rising as he let out all the frustration of his last class and the whispers and looks he'd received from the other students. "_I'm_ not the one assuming that you're spreading this stuff around!"

Liz stared at him, very pink. She went even pinker as there was a firm knock on the door.

"Come in," John growled, almost daring the person outside to enter.

The door opened wide enough for Teyla to poke her face in and look from one to the other. "I appear to be making a habit of this," she observed calmly.

John had no idea what she was referring to, but Liz went from pink to cherry red in an instant. "It's just a misunderstanding," she said hastily.

"You bet it is," John snapped at her. "Now, if you don't mind, I've got a bus to catch." He grabbed his bag and stalked out of the room.

It was a few seconds before Teyla caught up with him. "She is under a lot of stress."

Oh, now he really needed _this_. "She accused me of starting the damn rumours!"

"Did you?"

John skidded to a stop in the empty corridor, her question ringing in his ears. "What kind of a question is that?"

"A rhetorical one," said Teyla with forceful exasperation. "I do not give credence to wild rumours, John, especially when I know how Elizabeth feels about the matter."

It didn't quite mollify him. First Rodney even _thinking_ that John would steal another guy's girlfriend - let alone a guy John considered a friend, then Liz assuming that he was the one who'd been spreading the rumours...

John was beginning to wonder who these people were and did they even _know_ him?

"I don't need this now."

"No-one ever does."

"We've got tonight's game."

"In which you are supposed to lead us to glorious victory."

Her delicate acerbity won her a bitter smile, but John wasn't quite ready to let go of his anger. "Right now, I don't feel either glorious or victorious."

"That is your bad luck," Teyla pointed out. "Because the team wishes to be glorious and victorious in tonight's game against the Genii, and we have no other captain - unless you wish Bates to step in for you?"

John frowned slightly. "You've already threatened me with that once this season."

"Another habit that is developing," she said. "It is just a rumour."

"It's a lie."

"You know that."

"Yeah, but nobody else does. And even those who know it's not true think I'm spreading the rumour." That stung. That really stung.

"John..." Teyla sighed. "Am I going to have to smack some sense into you?"

He rolled his eyes. "No."

"Good. Because I wish to save my energy for the game this evening." Teyla turned him in the direction of his locker and gave him a push. "For heavens' sake, John, go and get your stuff and get to the bus. You can brood about this later - when the game is over."

He was going to.

John let her shove him towards his locker, took a few steps in that direction and then spun around. "You know," he said, stopping her mid-turn as she went to get her own stuff from her locker, "you're as bossy as Liz when you put your mind to it."

Teyla went dusky pink, rolled her eyes and stalked in the opposite direction, every sandal slap a testament to one offended girl.

John grinned and made for his locker.

- **tbc** -


	7. friday night fights

**Chapter 7**

**friday night fights**

Rough was not the way to describe the game. Brutal might have done it justice.

The weather matched the game; the night wind had a wintry bite that was just a little too chilly to be refreshing, even at the height of play. More than once John gritted his teeth at the blast of frigid wind that sneaked under his shirt and padding, and stained his cheeks with burning cold. Other players seemed to be doing the same.

Oh, Shermer won against Genii High - the only other team in the district league that fielded a girl on their team - but the play was hard and vicious.

Admittedly, John wasn't telling his team-mates to hold back. He'd never been fond of the Genii, even before he crossed Aaron Kolya last semester and ended up with an unexpected enmity on his hands. Besides, he wasn't feeling pleasant tonight, so if Coach didn't say anything, John wasn't going to say anything.

His team-mates hadn't commented on the rumours - at least, not to John's face. But there'd been a few sideways looks from the guys and a couple of conversations had petered out when John walked onto the bus.

He kept his calm in public, and channelled his frustration and his anger into the game.

John called the plays, played the game, got his fair share of bruises from the Genii defence, scored a touchdown in the second quarter, and shook hands politely at the end even though his ribs ached.

In fact, there was precious little team spirit from either side, and the handshaking at the end of the game was more of a rough slap of palms than any show of good sportsmanship. Of course, that might have been the cold. Most players were heading off the field as fast as they could.

John gritted his teeth and shook hands. He could afford to be polite; his team had won.

"Good game," said the Genii captain with a smile that did nothing to comfort John. Ladon Radim wasn't half the menace Kolya and Cowan had been two years ago, but John didn't entirely trust the smooth-speaking boy with the dirty-blond hair. And if the Genii had played down-and-dirty, Ladon hadn't reined in his team-mates.

"And you." John returned shortly before moving on to the next Genii player and the next, jogging briskly along the line until he reached the edge of the field and began heading for the change rooms.

In spite of the rough-and-tumble of the game, he still felt edgy, restless, hankering for a good fight and the chance to bruise someone else. He knew better than to start one with the Genii, of course, especially at a district game.

That didn't stop him from the slow burn of resentment he felt when he glanced back to check where his team was, and found Teyla halted just shy of the edge of the field, chatting easily with Ladon Radim and ignoring the glances she was receiving from both team-mates and Genii opponents.

"Friendly," Aiden commented, pausing alongside him.

"She came from their district," John said, playing fair, even if he was annoyed at her obvious friendliness.

"So did Dex, and he's not that friendly with them." The sophomore made a face. "Then again, he's not friendly with too many people."

John didn't quite wince. He wasn't thinking of Ronon right now. Instead, he broke into a jog, eager to get out of the wind. "I could really do with a hot shower."

"Not the only one, man," Aiden muttered, now a few yards behind. "It's gonna be a fight for the showers."

"First in, best washed," John quipped, pushing through the door to the locker room.

Most of the guys were already in there, in various stages of undress. John let his gaze slip over Bates and the defencemen, over on the other side of the locker room, and eyed Harrison, who was already down to his jocks. "Teyla's still gotta come through and grab her bag," he reminded the other boy.

"Then she'll get an eyeful of my ass," said Harrison with a smirk as he grabbed for his towel and slung it around his waist.

"Hey, your ass ain't much to look at," Aiden said as he dumped his helmet. "I wouldn't want to look at it if I was Teyla."

Harrison grinned. "Good thing you're not, then."

"Where is she anyway?" Evanham complained.

John glanced over at the centre. He could understand the other boys' impatience and frustration. Things _had_ to work differently on a team with a female player - they always had to cater for Teyla. During the game, her stuff was left with everyone else's, but afterwards, she grabbed her stuff and usually headed for the cheerleader changerooms.

It was inconvenient; but Teyla had been invaluable to the team this year, and John made sure the other boys recognised that.

"Probably still chatting up Radim," sneered Bates across the room.

"She seems to have a thing for football captains." Stackhouse commented, spreading his hands wide. "I'm just saying..." He broke off as the door opened, but it was only Sam Mayhew pushing open the door, his broad shoulders set against the wind, and a couple of guys after him.

"So, Sheppard," Bates asked spitefully as the door slipped closed, "Is she any good on her knees?"

The breath sucked out of John's lungs as he stared at Bates, furious at what the other guy had just implied. Someone sniggered, someone else choked, Aiden began a protest, and Bates took a step back.

Teyla leapt out from behind Mayhew, shadowed and sheltered from view by the guy's bulk. John caught a glimpse of her furious, set face, before her right hook took Bates in the jaw like a sledgehammer, sending him reeling back. No words, no protests, no warning - just the punch and the tense fury of her pose as Bates stumbled against the lockers. Evanham was already up, grabbing her arm and hauling her back. She lashed out at him, and John leapt forward, getting in and pulling her away before Evanham could lose his temper and take a swing at her, too.

"Teyla! Hey, calm down!"

She wrenched herself from John's grip, caught up in a fury that John felt, too. The difference was that he knew better than to start a fight here. Teyla wasn't thinking, she was just reacting. "Teyla!"

From the corner of his eye, John saw Aiden stepping in as Bates' mockery rang loud and clear through the room. "You want a piece of me, Teyla? Fine. Come and get it."

Teyla's eyes were black with rage as she glared at Bates over John's shoulder, but her retort was mostly calm, with only the undercurrent of fury to colour it. "The only piece of you I would take is your balls, Bates," she said. "And I would shove them in _your_ mouth, because they would come nowhere near _mine_!"

"All right, that's enough." The entire team spun to look at Coach, standing in the entrance to the locker room with his hands on his hips, clearly displeased. "I see that we're in slight need of a pep talk tonight," he said in a voice rich with irony. "Does anyone want to explain to me why Teyla's just offered to feed Bates his balls?"

Silence.

Coach looked at John. "Sheppard?"

Teyla tossed her head, and shoved John away, her cheeks brilliantly pink. "Bates implied that I have been trading sex in exchange for my position on the team." She spoke more coolly than John could imagine any other girl saying such a thing, although insulted pride poured off her like steam off a hot brick placed in an icebox.

"I did not!" Bates protested.

"Close enough," said Aiden, weathering the hard look Bates gave him.

Coach Caldwell's eyebrow lifted. "Evanham?"

Evanham glanced at Teyla, then at Bates, then at the coach. "It was just a joke, sir."

"If it was, it was a really bad one," John snapped. _As if Teyla would do that._

_As if I'd tell if she did._

He kept that thought carefully walled away as P.J. offered Bates's exact phrasing in a terse voice, glowing like a firefly.

"And does anyone else have anything to add to this situation?" Caldwell asked.

Silence.

"All right, then," said the coach, resting his lean bulk against the back of the door. "Looks like I _am_ going to start with the team pep talk after all. You're all here because you're the best in the school - _all_ of you. If you don't believe that, then I'm surprised that we've gotten this far as a team - and we probably won't get much further. What you think defines how we act out on the field. And in the middle of the district playoffs isn't a time to start doubting your team-mates. _Capische_?"

John nodded - as did most of the guys. Teyla's jaw shifted slightly, setting in a stubborn line.

"Good. Now, about this... Teyla, you're going to apologise to Bates for socking him one, no matter how justified it was. Bates, you're going to apologise to Teyla for what you said because it was both insulting and crude. I don't expect either of you will mean it, but you're going to apologise now, loud enough for your team-mates to hear."

No threat was made, but none was needed. There was no arguing when Coach spoke in that calm, reasonable voice.

Apologies were given, cold and insincere, and hands were shaken, then dropped like poison.

"One last thing," Coach said, easing himself off the door and regarding the entire room. "If I _ever_ hear about any of my players saying such things about their team-mates in future - and I don't think I need to elaborate exactly what - they're not only off the team, but whatever credits they were to get for this sport this year are revoked. You're a great team and the best players this school has to offer, but you'll only be that as long as you're not tearing each other down. Understand?"

They understood.

"Good." Coach glanced at Teyla. "Ms. Gormley is waiting outside to take you to the girls' locker rooms, Teyla. We'll meet you at the bus."

John caught her eye as she turned. She tossed her head and broke the eye contact. He would have liked to squeeze her shoulder as she stalked across the room to grab her bag, but he wasn't quite ready to do that after Bates' comment - not with every eye in the room watching him. Call it cowardice or self-preservation, he had enough shit going on right now without adding to it.

Instead, he turned back to his own bag and didn't look up until the door closed behind Teyla.

"Bates?"

"Sir?"

Coach eyed him with a level look. "A man who uses either fists or insults against a woman isn't much of a man."

Bates didn't flush, but he shot one furious glare at John. "Yes, sir."

John ignored it.

"You played well tonight - a hard, tough game." Coach glanced around the room, meeting all the gazes, including everyone in the praise. "All of you did, including Teyla and I'll be telling her so later. Keep it that way, and there's no reason we can't make it to the State."

"Yes, sir."

"Now get cleaned up." The older man's smile snaked out, wry and unexpected. "You all stink."

As he showered, John was reminded of why he admired Caldwell. The old coach - Sumner - had been a martinet to the core, more like a drill sergeant than a coach. It probably didn't help that Sumner reminded John of his own father. He'd nearly been thrown from the team in his sophomore year - only Caldwell's support had kept him on.

Sumner would never have countenanced Teyla on the team.

John shoved his face beneath the spray and scrubbed a lick of soap through his hair. God, Teyla. And Ronon. And Liz. He was going to have to sort things out with them all.

It would be easiest to start with Teyla. She was mad, but not at him, and he was pretty sure she wasn't the sulking type. Elizabeth - now, Elizabeth could do a sulk that left a guy in the doghouse for _months_ - but she probably wouldn't be that difficult to deal with now that she knew John wasn't responsible for the unwelcome rumours.

Which left Ronon.

Sooner or later, John was going to have to take matters into his own hands and talk to Ronon about this whole situation. Stress that he wasn't out to steal Liz from Ronon, and that he wouldn't do that to another guy, let alone a buddy, even if he _was_ interested in Liz.

And maybe - if he was really lucky - Ronon might leave him in a condition to at least stagger home.

It was a big 'if'.

- **tbc** -


	8. the home game

**Chapter 8**

**the home game**

Shermer High's parking lot was always busy around Saturday lunchtime during football season as players left Saturday morning training for their afternoon activities, and members of the track-and-field and athletics team arrived for their afternoon training.

"You do not have to do this," Teyla said as John fell into step beside her.

After Bates' accusation last night, John felt a little awkward approaching Teyla. He'd avoided her on the bus ride back, and during the visit to the restaurant, choosing to sit with Mara and her friends from the cheer squad. Ford's mom had given her a lift home, and Teyla had seemed relieved to be away from John.

In the day's crisp light, and after four hours of football training, John had worked out how he was going to deal with this. Now he just had to persuade Teyla to fall in with it.

Still, it was tempting to take her at her word, but practicality - and maybe a bit of stubbornness - forced him to say. "And how are you going to get to Rodney's?"

She shrugged and re-shouldered her bag again, glancing around the busy parking lot of the school. "I can get a lift off someone."

"You mean, someone who _isn't _going to Rodney's?" John blew out a long breath and touched her arm to make her stop and look at him. "Teyla. Look, nothing's changed-"

The look she gave him was scornful.

"Nothing's changed - not really. Sure, Bates shot his mouth off-" He paused. Teyla was nearly vibrating with fury.

"Did you _hear_ what he said? What he implied of me?"

Hot embarrassment swept over him, but John wasn't going to let it deter him. "What are you going to do about it, Teyla? What's going to make any difference in what he said? Yeah, we could avoid each other, but people would still think we were..." John paused and wondered if it was possible for him to be any more embarrassed. "People are going to believe what they want to believe. Like the stuff about me and Liz - people want to believe it, so they're just going to."

Teyla was still angry. "And so I should just ignore what is being said of me?"

"Who's saying it about you? Bates and his friends?" John snorted. "The girls who really _do_ give blowjobs to keep a boyfriend? Coach came down on your side, Teyla. They're not about to jeopardise their whole season just to spread something they know isn't true anyway."

She turned away to look at the busy parking lot, and John waited for her to think it through. He couldn't push her - it would only make things worse - but she had to see it his way. This wasn't going to go away, and the only thing they could do was ignore it and just be the way they'd always been.

"You believe that ignoring Bates will help?"

"Yes," John said. "I do. Look, Harrison, PJ and the others still think you're okay. If you hadn't hit Bates last night, one of them probably would have." Or John might have taken a swing himself. "They're not going to talk about it." At least, not anywhere Teyla or John would hear.

"You cannot know that."

"And you can't know that staying away from me isn't going to get more people gossiping anyway."

Teyla considered it. "I do not like it."

"I don't like the rumours either," John told her. "But we're going to have to live with them. And I'm not going to skulk around pretending we're not friends just because someone started spreading rumours that we're sleeping together."

Colour hit her cheeks - a faint burnishing of scarlet on her tanned skin.

"Besides," he added with all the persuasion he could manage. "If we're both going to Rodney's to study, then it makes sense for us to go together, doesn't it?"

"Do the rumours not bother you?"

John stuck his hands in his pockets. "You saw me yesterday afternoon." As it was, he'd been lucky that only Liz and Teyla had seen his brief spell of temper. Both girls knew him and knew how to deal with him.

Her nod was slow, and matched her sigh. "I suppose it is not all that different." The answer was dragged from her with bad grace. "All right."

And without a further word, she started off in the direction of John's car, leaving him to catch up, bemused with the speed of her change of heart. "All right?"

She shrugged. "As you said, there is nothing I can do about the rumours. And you are convenient to my purposes today."

John stopped in his tracks, unable to believe that she'd just said that so bloodlessly. Then she turned back to look at him and he saw her smug little smile. _Minx_.

"Come on," he said, walking past her to the car. "We've still got to get cleaned up before we turn up at Rodney's."

If there was a downside to driving Teyla around to Rodney's, it was that John had to stop at home first and clean up. He hadn't brought spare clothing along, and John wasn't about to turn up at Rodney's in a state where the other boy could sneer about 'jock hygiene'.

However, stopping at home meant meeting John's parents.

And that was the part that John was most worried about.

If he was lucky, his parents might be out. Or his mom might not be up. Or his dad might be satisfied with a grunt from the couch.

John could hope, anyway.

He pulled up behind his dad's car. "We shouldn't be too long," he said as they got their stuff out of the trunk.

His mom was pleasantly voluble as John and Teyla entered the kitchen. "John! I thought you'd be out all day. How was the game?"

John had been prepared to cringe the instant she opened her mouth. Relief spread through him, making him limp. "Uh, this morning was just practice, Mom. And we're just about to head off to Rodney's now. After we shower."

She nodded, but her eyes flickered to Teyla. "And this is...?"

Teyla smiled and nodded. "Teyla Emmagen, Mrs. Sheppard." When his mom got a speculative look in her eyes, she qualified, "I'm on John's football team."

"Didn't know they allowed girls on the varsity team," came the cool, cutting tones from the room behind that made John want to flinch.

"Usually, they do not," Teyla allowed, turning to face John's dad, although if she'd been easily polite before, she was being stiffly polite now.

"Teyla's one of our best players, sir," said John, wishing he'd given in to his first instinct and hustled her off to the bathroom before his parents had time to open their mouths. This wasn't going to go down well, he just knew it.

Patrick Sheppard summed up Teyla in a single glance, from her sweat-damped hair down to her dirty joggers. "Doesn't look like a footballer."

"Patrick." For a moment, John's mom sounded a little like her old self - with the restraining note in it that John hadn't heard in years. "What a thing to say! I'm sure Teyla's a fine player - she's been on the team all this time, and they're in the districts..."

"Yeah," John interrupted. "We had a game last night." _Which neither of you could be bothered attending._ "And we're headed over to Rodney's now. So, I'm just going to show Teyla your ensuite so we can shower and get moving."

"Oh, I can show her the ensuite, Johnny." John mentally cringed, although Teyla did nothing more than glance briefly at him in response to his mom's nickname for him. "Now, do you need a towel?"

"I have one of my own, Mrs. Sheppard." Teyla sounded carefully polite as John's mom led her away, and John watched, trying to conceal his anxiety from the man whose dark eyes watched him, hawklike, and who wasn't about to let his son off the hook just because the guest had left.

"So, have you screwed around with her yet?"

The question was casual and insulting - the way so many of Patrick Sheppard's comments were. John stiffened. "She's one of my team-mates."

"She's also your type." His dad bared his teeth in something that wasn't quite a grin. "Pretty, exotic, doesn't seem the clingy type..."

"Teyla's a friend," he said firmly, refusing to rise to the bait as he shifted his bag on his shoulder and began to go through to his room.

He wasn't fast enough to elude his mom returning through the door. "Well, she seems lovely," his mom said, brightly earnest as she patted his shoulder. "Such a nice girl."

John heard the question in the statement. _Are you dating?_

"All that alcohol's addled your brains, Marilyn," sneered his father. "She could be a complete bitch and it wouldn't matter. John always had an eye for a pretty face."

The barb struck a little too close to home after Bates' slam last night. "Coach Caldwell cleared her to play on the team," he defended. "She's our best wide receiver - scored the final goal at the Homecoming game..."

"I thought that was you."

"I threw it, she caught it."

"Teamwork?"

"Yes." John refused to be drawn.

"Teyla Emmagen... Teyla... It's a very pretty name." His mom opened the cupboard, and her hand paused over a glass before reaching for a mug. "What kind of surname is Emmagen?"

John shrugged. He'd never thought about it. It was pretty obvious Teyla had some mixed blood in her background, but he'd never asked. It was all secondary to her personality and football skills anyway. "What kind of surname is Sheppard?"

"Well, she seems like a nice girl," said his mom again. "Very polite."

"And politeness counts for _so_ much in this family."

The mug was slammed down on the table. "Well, at least I addressed her to her face, Patrick! You couldn't even be bothered to address the first girl our son brings home in months! It's no wonder he's ashamed to bring his friends around!" She started for the alcohol cabinet before she remembered where she was going and turned shamefacedly to get a teabag out of the pantry.

John felt himself tense as his father sneered, "Ashamed of _us_? _I'm_ not the one who's reaching for the bottle at midday!"

His mom was crimson. "At least I was willing to give the girl the benefit of the doubt," she said with a brittle edge to her voice. "She doesn't have to look like a footballer to play football." She glanced at John, almost begging for his reassurance. "It's so nice to meet your friends, Johnny - you never bring them home anymore."

"We're usually at Rodney's house or Liz's these days. In fact," he said, with a pointed glance at the clock. "We're already late." He shouldered his bag again and headed for his room. "I'm getting a shower."

"So you won't be staying for lunch?"

"No," he called back. "We'll have something to eat at Rodney's." It would get them out of here that much faster. He grabbed for some clean clothes and paused in the corridor as he heard his parents snapping at each other, not bothering to moderate their tones.

This had been a really bad idea.

His mom was right. John hadn't brought his friends around for years now. Not since he started high school and realised that his mom spent most of her day in a gently alcoholic haze, and his dad spent most of his day sneering at his mom.

As he showered, he reflected that it hadn't always been like this - or maybe he'd just been too young to notice. But these days, it was just easier to stay out of the house and not bring his friends around.

Especially not friends who were faster at taking showers than he was.

He heard the voices as he opened the bathroom door, his towel wrapped around his hips. Down the corridor floated his mom's too-bright voice asking too-curious questions, with Teyla's calm answers filling the silences.

John set a new record for getting dressed and out of the room with his bags, panic ripping through him as the thought about all the things that could go bad with this particular interrogation.

Teyla seemed unruffled by the interested questions being asked by John's mom. She glanced up as John entered the kitchen.

"Sorry, Teyla," he wondered if there was enough 'sorry' in the universe for subjecting her to his mom's conversation. Thankfully, his dad was nowhere to be seen. "Ready to go?"

"Yes." She rose to her feet. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Sheppard."

"You don't want some lunch? There's some leftover chicken in the fridge..." His mom sounded desperately pathetic, and John felt a moment's pity for her. It wasn't easy being stuck in the house with his dad all day - one reason why John spent his time elsewhere as much as possible.

"Mom, I said we'd have lunch at Rodney's..." Across the room, he saw Teyla open her mouth, then close it again. "It's fine."

"And you won't be home for dinner?"

"We've got the game this afternoon, then the Hallowe'en party at the Weirs." John grabbed for Teyla's hand, determined to pull her out of the house if necessary. "We're late. Bye, mom."

Outside, the air was crisp and cool with autumn's bite, unwarmed by the sun's thin rays. John took a deep breath and let it out slowly as they walked down the path to the street. "Sorry about that."

Teyla took back her hand as soon as the door closed behind them, but she waited until they had stored their gear in the car, grabbed their school bags and were halfway across the road on their way to Rodney's before speaking. "Your mother did not seem so bad," she said.

"Try living with her and my dad." Oh, god, his dad. "He didn't talk to you, did he?" Because John could just imagine what his father would have said - if he'd deigned to say anything at all.

"He did not." She glanced at him, sunlight flashing off the dark of her hair. "You did not tell them that we went to Homecoming together."

John shrugged. "They didn't ask. Mostly, they don't notice when I come and go. And it's better that way."

Teyla looked like she wanted to say something, but when she caught his sidelong glance, she closed her mouth.

"You've done that twice already."

"Sorry?"

"Opened your mouth, then shut it again." They'd reached the sidewalk on the other side of the street, and John stopped. "Twice. Just say it."

Teyla stepped around him and kept walking. "It is nothing."

"It's gotta be something!"

"It is nothing," she repeated as John ran to catch up.

"You did it twice."

"And twice nothing is still nothing. Have you yet spoken to Ronon?"

"What? Don't change the topic!"

Teyla stopped and turned to face him. "Your mother would have had you stay for lunch. She knows almost nothing of your games or your schooling - she did not know we went to Homecoming together. But she seemed interested in knowing more about you - yet you do not tell her."

Resentment burned hot in his belly and his chest at her criticism. "You don't know anything about my family."

Her expression tightened in annoyance at his words. "You are right: I do not," Teyla agreed. "They are not my parents and I do not have to live with them. But your mother would know more of you and seems nice..."

"That's only because she hasn't hit the bottle yet," John retorted softly. "She's usually drunk by now."

Teyla paused, then shrugged and began heading up the McKay's driveway.

John fell in beside her, grumpy now. "You don't know how it is," he said after a moment.

She didn't respond, although he caught her gaze a second before it slid away, back to the pavement.

He shouldn't ask. He knew it wasn't going to be something he liked, but he had to know. "So what was the thing about talking to Ronon?" The look Teyla gave him suggested he was being tolerated and nothing more. "God, don't sulk, Teyla. Look, you've already had your say when it comes to my family, you might as well just get this thing about Ronon out."

"Have you spoken with Ronon yet?"

John scowled. "Look, I can't talk to him if he's not around. And he hasn't been at school for the last couple of days. What do you want me to do? Hunt him down and confront him?" The thought of having to face Ronon - the thought of the rumours going around about him and Liz - made him grumpy. "Why are you taking such an active interest in my life anyway?"

Teyla took a deep breath. "Earlier, you threw it in my face that we are friends. Likewise, Elizabeth and Ronon are friends. Taking an interest is what friends do."

"All right, then, let's take an interest in _your_ love life," John said pointedly. "Starting with you and Michael Kenmore."

Teyla's mouth opened, then shut again. "That was not the topic-"

"Fine, I'm _making_ it the topic. So, what was that about friends taking an interest?" She didn't say anything, but started off towards the front door of Rodney's house. "See? You don't like me asking questions about your life..."

She stopped halfway up the path, so sharply that John nearly ran into her. "You have no interest in my relationship with Michael, John. The only purpose of your question was to put me in the spot."

John huffed. "Look, it's like I said. I'd talk to Ronon, but I haven't seen him. And I can't help what other people are saying. I can't even help what Liz thinks of me."

"No," Teyla agreed. "You cannot." She sighed. "Never mind, John."

They trudged up the path to the McKays' front door.

John rapped the knocker sharply on the door. Rodney's dad was obsessive about house security, and the door was always locked, even when there were people home.

"I'll get it!" Came the squeal from inside, followed by Rodney's deeper whine of complaint.

Footsteps thumped behind the door, and the door was abruptly yanked open, revealing a girl whose wealth of blonde curls crowned a small, oval face. "Teyla! John! I see you've come for another _thrilling_ session of study with my brother. But don't worry. He's in a good mood today."

"I was until you answered the door," Rodney told his little sister. "Now bust off, brat."

Jeannie McKay rolled her eyes. "You're such a _grump_, Rodney!"

"And I revel in it," said Rodney without a trace of sympathy.

"Hello, Jeannie," Teyla said as she stepped into the house. "Hello, Rodney."

"Hey, brat," John said more familiarly, reaching out to ruffle Jeannie's curls.

She screeched and flinched away. "John! You're as bad as Rodney!"

He grinned as he shut the door behind him. He didn't have siblings, but Jeannie was an acceptable not-sister. Annoying and fun to annoy, intelligent enough to keep up with him, and, best of all, he didn't have to live with her the way Rodney did, so he got all the perks of a bratty sister, and few of the drawbacks.

"Mom left a pan of macaroni-and-cheese for lunch," Rodney said.

"Leave some for me!"

"You'll have to get in fast," John called down the corridor where Jeannie had vanished. "Teyla's a pig when it comes to mac-and-cheese. Ow!" Fast as a snake, Teyla's hand had whipped out and whacked him in the chest.

"He only says that to cover his own greed," she retorted as she sat down at the table and began pulling out her books. "Your mother's macaroni-and-cheese would be wonderful, Rodney."

"Oh, well, you're getting it yourself. I wasn't put on Earth to be your servant."

Teyla rolled her eyes but got up and fetched herself lunch, serving some out for John, but - very pointedly -none for Rodney. In return, John got her a drink from the fridge and sat it in front of her. Rodney rolled his eyes at them. "I think I need an insulin injection." And he got his own drink and lunch.

After a few minutes, John turned on the television in the next room and changed channels to the game between Arizona State and UCLA for some background noise.

They ate lunch. Jeannie came in and got her lunch portion and pestered them. They studied. Rodney chattered on while John and Teyla worked. John went out to watch the game and Teyla and Jeannie joined him until Rodney complained that nobody was studying and what was the point of a study group if nobody was going to study?

But when Teyla went to use the bathroom and was audibly waylaid by Jeannie on the way back, Rodney brought up Ronon, much to John's dismay.

"He was supposed to come this afternoon, you know."

"Hm?" John was working through a series of chemical equations that were making no sense at all.

"Ronon. Was supposed to be coming today."

He didn't look up from his work. "You're tutoring him, too?"

"I figured he'd be around at Liz's - he usually is these days - except they're fighting and apparently you're dating her- Joke! Joke!" Rodney held up his hands at the intensity of John's glare. "Can anyone say 'oversensitive'?"

"Since both you and Teyla have brought it up, I think I can be oversensitive about this," he said, turning back to the page of the book.

"Teyla brought it up? Interesting. Zelenka said he saw her in town with Kenmore the other week. Do you know if he's coming to the party tonight as well? Because that could get_ really_ uncomfortable. And worse if Ronon turns up."

John grimaced. "I don't know if Kenmore's coming with her tonight." Liz wasn't friendly with the football set, so it wasn't likely that there'd be too many of them tonight, but it would still cause a stir for Teyla to turn up with Kenmore as a date. And, like Rodney said, if Ronon turned up, then things would probably get nasty.

He was more worried about things getting nasty between him and Ronon than things getting nasty between Ronon and Kenmore.

Although he wouldn't mind getting another fist in Kenmore's gut if the opportunity presented itself.

John sighed to himself. He really did have to confront Ronon about the rumours, and the party was as good a time as any - the more people, the less likely Ronon would hit him. And Megan and Michael would be there to act as peacekeepers if it got bad. Maybe.

Of course, if Ronon attacked him, then there'd be _another_ rumour running around school on Monday.

Just what he didn't need.

On the other hand, he'd rather Ronon swung a punch at a private party than in one of the corridors at school.

He glared at the chemistry textbook, as though it was the cause of his woes.

It looked like he was going to Liz's Halloween party after all.

**tbc**


	9. creepy and kooky

**Chapter 9**

**Creepy And Kooky**

John climbed out of the car into the evening breeze and decided that the weather was a lot cooler when he wasn't running around on a field, chasing a pigskin ball. Winter was definitely coming in.

On the other side of the car, Mara made a 'brr' sound as she pulled her jacket around her shoulders and came around to John's side of the car and the path up to the front door. "Do you think I look okay?" She tweaked a curl into place and looked appealingly up at John.

Since she was in a low-cut, fit-like-a-second-skin, 'Greek goddess' Halloween outfit, John thought she looked pretty damn hot. "You look gorgeous," he told her, adjusting his collar.

The vampire suit was from two years ago, but it still fit him and he thought looked pretty dashing in it. Besides, it was the only time his hair sat down flat on his head - mostly because he'd put half a tub of hair gel in it, and would need half a ton of water to get the gel out.

On the path up to the front door, small jack o'lanterns glimmered with candlelight, their tiny shapes shining the letters 'WELCOME' back at the arriving guests.

John gave Mike and Megan full marks for inventiveness.

The door opened and Megan appeared, dressed in what looked like one of her business suits and grinning through a set of fake fangs. "Hello, John." She looked at Mara. "Wait, don't tell me, I'll remember in a moment... Maria. No, wait! Mara, right?"

"Yes, Mrs. Weir."

"Oh, just call me Megan." She stepped back. "Come in before you freeze - I love your costume. Bought or made?"

"Oh, just bought."

Megan grinned, then coughed and popped out the fangs. "Excuse me. Not the most comfortable of accessories. Most of the guests are in the rumpus room. Just go in and help yourself to food."

"Right. So, uh, who else is here?" John asked, suddenly reminded of why he'd agreed to come to this at all - and why he'd coaxed Mara into coming with him. Okay, one _other_ reason that he'd roped her into attending this party. He was interested and she was interested back. The fact that she would also make it quite clear that John wasn't dating Liz was a bonus.

"Elizabeth, Rodney, Carson and Laura, Kate, Ben...about a dozen others. You'll see them when you go in."

Just not Ronon. Megan wouldn't have left Ronon out of the litany.

The murmur of conversation could be heard coming from the lounge area, and John stepped into a room full of junior and senior classmates. He got hails from several quarters, including Liz. "Help yourself," she called. It didn't look like she was going to be moving out of Ben Maroney's orbit anytime soon.

Which was fine by John, especially if Ronon turned up. It was callous, but better Maroney than him.

Mara made a beeline for Laura and Kate Heightmeyer, and John surveyed the room as Rodney fronted up with a chicken bone in one hand and his mask in the other.

"I see you decided to turn up."

"Your powers of observation slay me," said John shortly before dropping his voice. "Any news on Ronon?"

"Hi, how are you, Rodney? It's good to see you. Say, thanks for letting me come around this afternoon and eat your food, watch your television and pick your brain, I really appreciated it. Where did you get that mask? From the hallowe'en warehouse out by Denny's on Indiana Ave? What a coincidence! I got my costume there. Of course, I got it there two years ago and am too lazy to actually get a new one for this year. Etcetera, so on, and so forth." He paused. "Sheppard, you _fail_ at the school of small-talk."

"I also fail at the school of 'having friends who don't talk to themselves for two minutes straight upon meeting me'," said John sardonically. "It wasn't a difficult question."

Rodney rolled his eyes and glanced over his shoulder at the room. "No, I haven't heard any news. Elizabeth hasn't said a word and neither has anyone else, yet. So I'm guessing he's still mad at her, or she's still mad at him and don't we have better things to talk about - like Mara's cleavage and whether you've gotten to second base?"

"If I had, I wouldn't tell you," retorted John. "Get your own girlfriend."

"Ah, so she's girlfriend status, then?" Rodney brightened, eyeing Mara with some interest. "I have to live vicariously somehow."

"Two words for you: Katie Brown."

"Two words for you: Greg Hendricks."

"Oh. Well, too bad. I'm sure you'll find someone else. Like Miko."

"Please. Miko's a nice girl, but not really my type."

"Ever noticed how your type are never _interested_ in you, Rodney?"

"Sure they are. They just...don't know it yet..." Rodney trailed off, his eyes going behind John's back. "Oh. Okay, then..."

John turned as a wave of silence spread out over the room.

Given his conversation with Teyla earlier, he wasn't at all shocked to see Teyla standing in the entrance to the living room, a pale pointed face watching the gathering from over her shoulder. Her expression was cool as a queen surveying her subjects as she met the stares directed her way. Beyond her, Kenmore looked almost triumphant.

She was dressed in a clinging black lace dress that swept the floor, and her hair was loose over her shoulders and spray-painted black - John could see the places where the spray job had been less than thorough. Kenmore's lazy look of amusement topped a pinstriped suit and button up collar, and his hair had also been painted black and slicked down.

He sauntered into the party like a gangster walking into a church.

"Teyla." Liz crossed the room in greeting. People could say what they liked about Liz, but she didn't confuse easily. It was probably one of the reasons that Ronon had thrown her for a loop - he just didn't act the way she was expecting. "Michael." Her voice was easy, although she was probably aware of the undercurrents in the room.

Catching Kenmore's eye, John just nodded briefly before deliberately turning his back on the Rait boy.

Rodney was staring. "What's he doing here?"

"Well, since he arrived with Teyla, I'm guessing he's her date for the night," John murmured. "Stop staring."

"I thought she had better taste than that."

"You also thought she might go to Homecoming with you."

"It was reasonable!"

John snorted. "Sure it was. At any rate, he's here and you're going to be polite to him."

Rodney made a face. "Please. I'm not the one with a macho image to maintain!"

"I'm going to be polite to him, too."

"Hah," Rodney scoffed. "Thank God Ronon isn't here. And Mara's coming this way. I'm going to get more food."

"Hey, Rodney," Mara cooed as she attached herself to John's arm, snuggling up against him so the curve of her breast nudged his arm.

John wondered if this counted as getting to second base.

Rodney's eyebrows were somewhere up in the middle of his forehead by then. "Right. Well. Then. I'm going to get some food. Want any? John? Mara?"

"I'm fine," John said, hoping his voice didn't sound too strangled, especially when Mara shifted against his arm.

"Me, too," Mara murmured with a smile that was definitely flirtatious. "Thanks, Rodney."

Rodney rolled his eyes and stumped off.

"Are you flirting with him?" John demanded when Rodney was across the room and couldn't hear them.

She fluttered her lashes at him. "Are you jealous?"

He knew better than to give her any leverage like that. "Maybe." It was a prevarication and he knew it, but he didn't think she'd call him on it.

Mara smirked up at him. "I heard he has a thing for blondes."

"It'd help if you came up with your own science fair project that involved particle chambers or rail guns," John commented. "But, yeah. He's a sucker for blondes."

"Lucky for Teyla that the Rait boy isn't," said Mara with a pleasant, piercing look at John. "What's happening there, anyway?"

"What makes you think I know?" John knew better than to glance over to where Liz was still chatting with Teyla. Without looking, he knew that Michael wasn't participating in the conversation, just watching the room, probably with one hand on Teyla's waist.

"You're such good friends." Mara twirled a curl of hair around her finger. "I mean, you took her to Homecoming..."

John decided that enough was enough, and slipped an arm around her waist, heading over for a couple of chairs that Kate and Maroney had just vacated. "It was just friends," he said. "She didn't have a date after she broke up with Lorne and I didn't have one after Chaya..."

"That was mean of her," Mara flashed. "What she did. Dumping you." She nestled into his side, all warm curves and soft flesh. "Her loss."

John didn't know whether to agree or dismiss it. "Yeah, well, Teyla and I are just friends."

"Like you and Elizabeth?"

"Like that. Or like me and Rodney," he said, pulling her down into the chair with him. "Okay?"

She looked like Rodney's cat Felix the time he'd gotten into John's tunafish sandwich - all satisfaction. "Okay."

As Laura bounced up in her Valkyrie outfit and started a conversation with Mara, and Carson hauled his horned helmet over for a chat, John figured that at least he was aware of where the pitfalls were in his relationship with Mara. If they decided to start dating, of course. Although, considering the soft, warm curves sitting on his lap, John couldn't think of a reason why not.

Still, that awareness made him a little wary when Teyla came alongside him as he was fetching himself and Mara some food.

"John."

"Teyla."

"So, am I off the team?" Her tone of voice was offhand, but John could tell she was already on the defensive.

He glanced sideways at her, refusing to rise to her bait. "I thought we already talked about this," he said.

Teyla shrugged as she helped herself to a handful of chips and a gingerbread cookie. "Sometimes there is a difference between what people say and what they mean."

"Yeah, well, not me." Aware of a buzzing anger in his chest, John figured it was best not to talk about this much more. "Who you date is your business," he said and hoped it was enough.

It seemed to be enough, because her smile was immediate and broad. "Thank you, John." And her hand covered his wrist and squeezed briefly before reaching to snag the last of Megan's potato cakes from right under John's hand.

"Hey!"

"Ladies first, John."

He contemplated snatching it off her plate, but dismissed the idea as too juvenile, even for him. John settled for sticking out his tongue and taking the last two choc-chip cookies. "Seen Ronon?"

Teyla rolled her eyes. "Not in the last two hours, John." She took a bunch of celery sticks and nibbled at the end of one. "Perhaps you should ask Elizabeth since it is her party?"

Asking Liz was something John wanted to avoid doing if at all possible. He took a quick look about the room, winking at Mara when she looked up to see what was taking him so long.

"You and Mara are serious, then?" Teyla followed his gaze, and when he looked back, she was watching him with amusement, arching a brow.

John gave her a level look and kept his voice low as he snagged some chips. "About as serious as you and Kenmore." Which could mean anything or nothing. "What are you guys dressed as, anyway?"

"You've obviously never watched _The Addams Family,_ Sheppard," Kenmore drawled, coming up behind Teyla and sliding a possessive arm around her waist. "Gomez and Morticia Addams."

As a matter of fact, John _had _seem the original _Addams Family_ television series. "Creepy and kooky, huh?"

"And loving it," Kenmore said with a possessive smile for Teyla, who just smiled at him, more tolerant than enthused. Even as John watched, the other boy took her hand and kissed the wrist, murmuring something in another language, before moving to her elbow, her upper arm, her throat.

The kiss was brief, although that seemed to be more because Teyla broke away laughing, then caught sight of John's face.

He was pretty sure he'd managed to keep his expression neutral, but judging by the look in Teyla's eyes and the narrow stare Kenmore gave John before the other boy went away, he'd failed.

She leaned across the table and grabbed a handful of lollies. "You do not approve."

"I...it's not that." He glanced around, unable to shake the feeling that Kenmore was watching them. But it seemed that Kate was politely engaging him in discussion, and the Rait boy's back was turned. "I don't like him. It's a personal thing and has nothing to do with you."

"A personal thing?"

"I'm allowed to have people I dislike," John said pointedly. "You've never liked Bates."

Her eyes flashed. "Bates has never liked me," she said with more than a little heat. "As the other night showed."

Okay, so maybe bringing up Bates hadn't been the best of ideas. "Look, if you like Kenmore then, fine. Go for it. I wish you many fat babies."

Teyla arched both brows at him. "Many fat babies?"

"It's a..." John gave up. Obviously Liz's love of Nathan Fillion had never managed to impact on Teyla. "Never mind." He made a face at her. "That's all you're going to get from me about it."

"Good," she said at last. "Because that is all I am going to listen to you say about it."

And with that, she walked off to where Kate and Kenmore were talking. John ignored the challenging look Kenmore sent him, and concentrated on paying attention to Mara, who was more than happy to have his undivided interest.

Teyla could date who she wanted. John had nothing to say on that matter.

Ronon was back at school on Monday.

It took John all Monday to realise the other guy was avoiding him. They only had one common class - Ancient History - and Ronon arrived so late that he barely made it in ahead of Mr. Jackson and had to sit way up the front. Once class was over, Ronon was out the door like a shot.

At lunch, John sat with several of the football guys and kept an eye out, but saw no sign of Ronon. He waited by Ronon's locker after school until it was past time for football training, ended up arriving late and being stuck doing an extra dozen pushups and three laps of the field.

Tuesday was a game of cat-and-mouse, with John playing the part of the cat. Of course, he wasn't actually stalking Ronon - he didn't particularly want to have to chase the other guy all around school only to find themselves in a busy corridor where the grapevine would be all over them.

So he waited.

As he approached the gym about an hour after school had finished, John heard the noises of a fight in progress and thanked whatever deity had given him the inspiration to think of cornering Ronon during his weekly sparring with Teyla.

The Fight Club had assorted meetings during the week - two lunchtimes, and Wednesday afternoons. Teyla was an unofficial member since she usually couldn't make the Wednesday afternoon meets due to football training. However, since she'd been district champion in the girls' miniweight category last year, Mr. T was inclined to give her some leeway and had authorised her to use the gym after school with any opponent she wished - under his supervision of course.

And since Ronon was the only one who could give Teyla a serious run for her money when it came to fighting...

This fighting style involved short staves in each hand, using the staves to attack and block by turns, and Teyla was doing at least as much attacking as she was doing blocking. Ronon might be bigger and with a longer reach, but she was holding up with impressive skill.

John paused at the entrance to the gym, just in time to see Teyla duck under one of Ronon's lunges, spin her baton around in her hand and rap Ronon hard across the knuckles, causing him to yelp as he lost his grip on the length of wood.

"Very good, Teyla." The voice that rang out across the gym as Ronon reached to retrieve his stick was not Mr. T's.

John hid a grimace as Ms. Ishtar's gaze lifted to take him in, and one slender eyebrow rose over blue eyes. "Mr. Sheppard."

Both Teyla and Ronon turned, only just now noticing him. Teyla glanced from him to Ronon as she pulled out her ponytail and began remaking it; Ronon just scowled, shaking his dreadlocks forward as though to protect him against John's confrontation.

"Hey, Ms. Ishtar. I just... Uh..." How the hell was John going to explain this? His grand plan of cornering Ronon had extended as far as getting the other guy in the gym. It hadn't involved getting rid of supervising teachers, or considered just how he was going to explain something as personal as why he wanted to talk to Ronon without laying out his personal life.

Oh, to hell with it. "Actually, I wanted to talk with Ronon."

The slender Domestic Tech teacher lifted the other eyebrow to match the first. "Ah. I see. Do you need an audience for this kind of talking?"

John glanced at Teyla, figuring she would have a better idea of the situation than he. "Do we need the audience?"

She glanced at Ronon, who bared his teeth in a mock-snarl. "I do not think bystanders would be helpful," she concluded.

"Good decision," Ronon muttered.

"Although," Ms. Ishtar pointed out, "Mr. T is out the back, cataloguing the hockey gear. So keep it down, boys."

It was a concession with a warning. Ms. Ishtar didn't like it, but she wasn't going to talk them out of it, either. John wasn't sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

Teyla was already reaching for her jacket, sliding the zip up with practised ease. "And try not to bruise him too much," she said to Ronon as she swung her satchel up on her shoulder.

"So encouraging," John snapped, earning him a twitch of the mouth before she left. Ms. Ishtar followed Teyla a moment later, and their voices drifted off into the chilly afternoon.

Then it was just him and Ronon.

He took a deep breath and indicated the staves Teyla had left behind. "Mind if I...?"

Ronon shrugged and waited until he'd retrieved the staves. "What do you want?"

John tilted the staves in his hands, testing out their weight and trying to get the feel for how Teyla and Ronon had been using them. "Well, for starters, I'd like to know what these are called."

They didn't look like standard school equipment, which was to say, used long and hard and not cared for. The handles had engravings around the grips and while the lengths used for contact showed signs of tough hits, they weren't battered down.

"_Bantos_ rods," said Ronon. He spun one in his hand, like a bandleader twirling a baton. "Wanna give it a go?"

John mistrusted the grin. "Are you going to beat me up?"

"Maybe." Ronon reached out and batted one of John's sticks with his own. "I'll go easy on you."

John backed away, as Ronon advanced. "You just want the chance to beat me up." He reached the edge of the mats and turned, pushing Ronon's _bantos_ stick away with his own.

"Teyla made mincemeat of you at the lunchtime club the other day." The other guy grinned. "It's my turn."

Oh, _great_. "Teyla makes mincemeat of everyone at the lunchtime club," said John, disliking the way things were turning out. "And I didn't know that you guys shared _everything_."

The _bantos_ rod whipped out and nicked John on the arm. It stung. "We don't. Just got a lot of things in common."

"Yeah, well, that's how it works with me and Liz."

"You're usually around at her house."

"Hey, it's just study, okay?" And it was better than going home. His attempt at blocking Ronon was unsuccessful, and he nearly lost his grip on the rod. "We're friends."

"I heard otherwise."

"You heard wrong." John figured he was going to go down hard, he might as well say his piece. "Look, I don't know who told you so, but I'm not dating Liz. We're just friends. And even if I was interested in her - which I'm not - I wouldn't..." He yelped as Ronon got him on the wrist, then swept John's feet out from under him. Unlike Teyla, Ronon didn't help his fall and John's butt plumped down on the mat. "Ow."

The other guy towered over him. "Your defense is crap."

"Yeah, well, doesn't that say more about the teacher than the student?" He held up a hand, asking for help.

After a moment, Ronon grabbed his hand and hauled him up. John got halfway up before Ronon let him go again. This time, the mats weren't quite enough to protect his tailbone as it came down. The breath huffed out of John and he grunted, angry. "What was that for?"

Ronon shrugged. "I felt like it."

Once again the hand came down. This time, John ignored it and got himself up. His butt hurt, but the rest of him was mostly undamaged. Hopefully Ronon would leave it that way. "Are you done?"

"Dunno. You came here and started it."

To start with, John was sore. On top of that, he was irritated. "I came here to _sort things out_," he snapped.

The other guy eyed him. "Think they're sorted?"

John eyed him back. "Unless you're going to whale on me again."

Ronon shrugged one shoulder and dumped the _bantos_ rods with a musical clatter. "Can't be bothered."

He wondered whether he should be insulted, then figured if he got out of it with all limbs and no major bruises, it was good. "So are you going to make up with Liz?"

The glance his way was half-scornful, half-suspicious. "What's it to you?"

"Liz got mad at me last Friday because she thought I was spreading the rumours."

"Were you?"

"No!" John fumed, then fumed some more when Ronon smirked.

"Sensitive, aren't you?"

"You were the one avoiding me."

The smirk faded and Ronon crouched down, absently balancing himself and dimpling the mats with his fingers as he rocked forward on his toes and his dreadlocks swung down, loose, over his shoulders as he stared at the mat like it was one of the most interesting things on the planet. "She had a crush on you."

It looked like Teyla had been right after all. John gave the only answer that seemed sane. "Note the past tense."

He got a piercing look from dark eyes. "You're her type."

As statements went, this one was pretty calm - more than John would have been when talking to the guy rumoured to be stealing his girlfriend.

"She's not my type," said John bluntly. There wasn't much else to be said about it. "We're friends. That's all."

Ronon glanced up. "That's all?"

John made a face down at the other guy. "I just said so, didn't I? Look, your relationship with Liz is your business. I just... I just wanted to let you know that whatever you hear, it's got nothing to do with me."

"You've done that."

"Yeah."

The silence stretched out, long and uncomfortable as they stared at each other. Ronon was watching John with what John could only think of as a measuring gaze.

"All right. Things are sorted."

"Just like that?"

Another shrug. Looked like Ronon was pretty fond of them. "Unless you want to tell me about Mara Tower and second base."

It looked like Ronon had been talking to Rodney in the last few days. Just not John. He figured he should take that as a hint and began walking away.

"Game on Friday?"

When he turned back, Ronon was watching him from the middle of the gym mats. The question hung in the air, not quite an olive branch, but close enough that John wasn't going to quibble. "Malloozzi Stadium. The usual time." He hesitated. "Coming?"

"Maybe. Depends."

John didn't bother asking what it depended on. Ronon wasn't much of a football supporter. He only really turned up at the games when Liz did.

"All right. See you."

"See you."

He passed Teyla and Ms. Ishtar coming back - the two of them too involved in a slow-flowing, easy conversation to be bothered doing more than looking him over. Teyla quirked a brief smile at him as she headed back into the gym, and Ms. Ishtar had no compunction in surveying him from toe to crown with dark narrowed eyes to determine his state of health.

John felt...okay. A bit sore, maybe, but if his dignity was a little bruised, he figured he'd done what he could to clear things up between him and Ronon. It was the right thing to do, and John felt good about it.

The ball was in Ronon's territory.

**tbc**


End file.
